agues, the representatives of the law, and, most likely the majority
of the spectators would have found themselves in the street in an
exceedingly short space of time. But Dumnoff yielded to the inevitable; a
couple of well-planted blows delivered by the rescuing party on the sides
of his thick skull made him shake his head as a cat does when its nose is
sprinkled with water, and the mujik reluctantly relinquished the struggle.
At the same time the porter who had claimed the doll came forward and
touched his bare head with a military salute.

"What is your name?" asked the first policeman, anxious to get to
business.

"Jacob Goggelmann, Dienstmann number 87, formerly private in the Fourth
Artillery, lately messenger in the Thueringer Doll Manufactory."

"Very good," said the policeman, anxious to take the side of his
countryman from the first, and certainly justified in doing so by the
circumstances. "And what is your complaint?"

"That doll, there, on the table," said the porter, "was stolen from me on
New Year's eve, and now that man"--he pointed to the Count, who stood
stiffly looking on--"that man has got possession of it."

"And who stole it from you?" inquired the policeman with that acuteness in
the art of cross-examination for which the police are in all countries so
justly famous.

"Ja, Herr Wachtmeister, if I had known that--" suggested the porter.

"Of course, of course," interrupted the other. "That man stole the doll
from you, you say?"

"Somebody stole it with my basket, as I stopped to drink a measure in the
yard of the Hofbraeuhaus, and I had to pay for it out of my caution money,
and I lost my place into the bargain, and there lies the accursed thing."

The policeman, apparently quite satisfied with the porter's story, turned
upon the Count with a blustering and overbearing manner.

"Now, then," he said, roughly, "give an account of yourself. Who are you
and what are you doing here? But that is a foolish question; I know
already that you are a Bohemian and a journeyman tinker."

"A Bohemian? And a journeyman tinker?" repeated the Count, almost
speechless with anger for a moment. "I am neither," he added, endeavouring
to control himself, and settling his refractory collar with one hand. "I
am a Russian gentleman."

"A gentleman--and a Russian," said the policeman, slowly, as though
putting no faith in the first statement and very little in the second. "I
think I can provide you with a lodgin