y informed us that he was empowered to attend only to cases of
drunkenness, breaches of the peace, and the like. We must return on
Monday, he declared.

"No," said I. "Why make us waste all that time in beautiful Moscow? Here
are our passports to identify us. Will you please to tell the captain,
as soon as he arrives to-morrow morning, that we are genuine, and
request him to sign this petition and post it?"

The officer courteously declined to look at the passports, said that my
word was sufficient, and accepted my commission. Then, rising, drawing
himself up, with the heels of his high wrinkled boots in regulation
contact, and the scarlet pipings of his baggy green trousers and tight
coat bristling with martial etiquette, he made me a profound bow, hand
on heart, and said: "Madam, accept the thanks of Russia for the high
honor you have done her in learning her difficult language!"

I accepted Russia's thanks with due pomp, and hastened into the street.
That small, low-roofed station house seemed to be getting too contracted
to contain all of us and etiquette.

Again, upon another occasion, also in Moscow, it struck us that it would
be a happy idea and a clever economy of time to get ourselves certified
to before our departure, instead of after our arrival in St. Petersburg.
Accordingly, we betook ourselves, in a violent snowstorm, to the police
station inside the walls of the old city, as we had changed our hotel,
and that was now our quarter.

A vision of cells; of unconfined prisoners tranquilly executing hasty
repairs on their clothing, with twine or something similar, in the
anteroom; of a complete police hierarchy, running through all the
gradations of pattern in gold and silver embroidery to the plain uniform
of the roundsman, gladdened our sight while we waited. A gorgeous
silver-laced official finally certified our identity, as usual without
other proof than our statement, and, clapping a five-kopek stamp on our
paper, bowed us out. I had never seen a stamp on such a document before,
and had never been asked to pay anything; but I restrained my natural
eagerness to reimburse the government and ask questions, with the idea
that it might have been a purely mechanical action on the part of the
officer, and in the hope of developments. They came. A couple of hours
later, a messenger entered our room at the hotel, without knocking, in
Russian lower-class style, and demanded thirty kopeks for the signature.
I of