conditions--once the occupant of a front room
in a cheap boarding-house, supporting himself by filling space in the
columns of an encyclopaedia, and now the bosom friend of Princes and
Ambassadors!

Then a doubt arose in my mind. WAS it Bing? Had I not made a mistake?
How could a smooth-shaven Dane with blond hair transform himself into a
swarthy Russian with the beard of a Cossack? There was, it is true, no
change in the eyes or in the round head--in the whiteness and width of
the forehead, or the breadth of the shoulders. All these I went over
one by one as I watched him every now and then lean across the table
and speak to some of the distinguished guests that surrounded him. The
thing which puzzled me was his grave, sedate demeanor, dignified,
almost austere at times. A man, I thought, might grow a beard and dye
it, but how could he grow a different set of manners, how smother his
jollity, how wipe out his spontaneous buoyancy?

No, it was not Bing! It was only my stupid self. I was always ready to
find the mysterious and unnatural. I turned to the guest next me.

"Do you know who that man is on the dais," I asked; "the one all black
and white, with the big beard?"

"Yes, one of the Prince's suite; some jaw-breaking name with an
'-usski' on the end of it. He brought him with him; looks like a bull
pup chewing a muff, doesn't he?"

I smiled at the comparison, but I was still in doubt.

When the banquet broke up I hurried out ahead of the others and posted
myself at the top of the staircase leading down to the side door of the
street. The Prince's carriage--an ordinary cab--was ordered to this
door to escape the crowd and to avoid any delay. This I learned from my
old friend Alcorn of the Central Office, who was in charge of the
detectives at the dinner, and who in answer to my request said:

"Certainly I'll let you through. Come alone, and don't speak to me as
you go by. I'll say you're one of us. The crowd thinks he's going out
by the other door, and you can get pretty close to him."

The Prince came first, wrapped in furs--the black-bearded Russian at
his side in overcoat, silk hat and white gloves. The Ambassador and the
others had bidden them good-night at the top of the staircase.

Under Alcorn's direction I had placed myself just inside the street
door where I could slip out behind the Prince and his black-bearded
companion. As a last resort I determined to walk straight up to him and
say: "You haven'