on the ground that the
merchant kept early hours, and that unless when he had specially
mentioned that he should not be home until late, he made a point of
being in between ten and eleven.

He was again surprised at the warmth with which several of the guests
spoke to him as he said good-night, and went away with the idea in his
mind that among the younger Russians, at any rate, Englishmen must be
much more popular than he had before supposed. One or two young officers
had given him their cards, and said that they should be pleased if he
would call upon them.

"I have had a pleasant evening," he said to himself. "They are a jolly
set of fellows, more like boys than men. It was just the sort of thing I
could fancy a big breaking-up supper would be if fellows could do as
they liked, only no head-master would stand the tremendous row they made
with their choruses. However, I don't expect they very often have a
jollification like this. I suppose our host was a good deal better off
than most of them. Petroff said that he was the son of a manufacturer
down in the south. I wonder what he meant when he laughed in that quiet
way of his when I said I wondered that as his father was well off he
should take an appointment at such an out-of-the-way place as Tobolsk.
'Don't ask questions here,' he said, 'those fellows handing round the
meat may be government spies.' I don't see, if they were, what interest
they could have in the question why Alexis Stumpoff should go to
Tobolsk.

"However, I suppose they make a point of never touching on private
affairs where any one can hear them, however innocent the matter may be.
It must be hateful to be in a country where, for aught you know, every
other man you come across is a spy. I daresay I am watched now; that
police fellow told me I should be. It would be a lark to turn off down
by-streets and lead the spy, if there is one, a tremendous dance; but
jokes like that won't do here. I got off once, but if I give them the
least excuse again they may send me off to the frontier. I should not
care much myself, but it would annoy the governor horribly, so I will
walk back as gravely as a judge."

CHAPTER III

A HUNTING PARTY.

Two days later Robson, an English merchant who had been one of the most
intimate of Godfrey's acquaintances, and to whom he had confided the
truth about his arrest, said to him:

"You are not looking quite yourself, lad."

"Oh, I am all right!" he said; "b