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1912] M. SHELKING 89
been baneful to Shelking: his love of intrigue and his
unhappy passion for gambling. The latter completely
wrecked his career and his life : it was the cause of a
very unpleasant story about money, when he was First
Secretary to the Legation at The Hague. His chief
would not screen him, and the numerous friends he had
in the offices of the Ministry could only mitigate for
him the consequences of his unpardonable frivolity.
He had to hand in his resignation, and from this
moment, with material ruin, began for him the hard life
of a journalist, coupled with that of " correspondent " to
the state-police department—in short, the life of an
adventurer. However, through his sister he had some
fairly powerful protectors in St. Petersburg: first it was
M. Ploehve, then M. Goremykin, and finally M.
Sturmer. He wrote fairly often in the Novoye Vremja,
but he did not succeed in getting on the staff. In time
he succeeded in gaining the good will of M. Propper,
and became political editor of the Stock Exchange
Gazette. Before the Revolution of 1917, Shelking
became very intimate with the famous
Manassevitch-Manouiloff, and the moment the Revolution broke out,
he disappeared altogether from St. Petersburg, and was
on the point of fleeing to Japan through Siberia, but
he was arrested at the last moment, found to be in
possession of large sums of money, and thrown into
prison. At least, that is what one read about him in the
Russian newspapers of the day. I do not know what
became of him eventually.
As soon as he arrived in Sofia, Shelking called
on me. Like a great many others of my profession,
I was weak enough to receive him with kindness, in
memory of former relations, and also by virtue of a
failing inherent in all good Russians, which consists of
looking on every individual who has made a slip or
transgressed the canons of good society, as a child of
misfortune ; moreover, Shelking knew how to captivate
one by his quick and ready mind and his bright
conversation. But during my interview with him I
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