any one may drop a coin accidentally!
Now, if you were just an ordinary customer, nothing more would happen;
the waiter would keep near your table for a minute or two, and that
is all. But if you are on business you will ask him, 'Is Nicolai
Stefanovitch here to-day?' Or you may say any name you think of,--a
common one is best. He will answer, 'At what hour should he be here?'
and you say, 'I do not know when he returns--from his work.' Or 'from
Wilna,' or elsewhere; that is unimportant, like the name. But the
questions must be put so, and there must be the pause, between the two
words 'returns from' just for one beat of the clock as it were, or while
one blows one's nose, or lights a cigarette. Then he will know you are
one of us, and will go away; and presently one will come and sit at the
table, and say, 'I am so and so,--' the name you mentioned. He will
drink his tea, and you will go out together; and if it is a note you
will pass it to him, so that none shall see; or if it is a message, you
will tell it him very quietly."

We rehearsed the shibboleth in my room. I did it right the first time,
much to Mishka's satisfaction; and when we reached the cafe he let me
be spokesman. Within three minutes a cadaverous looking workman in a
red blouse lounged up to our table, ordered his glass of tea, nodded to
me as if I was an old acquaintance, and muttered the formula.

He and I had gone out together, leaving Mishka in the cafe,--since in
Russia three men walking and conversing together are bound to be eyed
suspiciously,--and my new acquaintance remarked:

"There is no message, as I know; this is but a trial, and you have done
well. If there should be a letter, a cigarette, with the tobacco hanging
a little loose at each end,--" he rolled one as he spoke and made a
slovenly job of it,--"is an excellent envelope, and one that we
understand."

We had separated at the end of the street, and Mishka rejoined me later
at my hotel. But I had not needed to try the shibboleth since, though
I had dropped into the cafe more than once, and drank my glass of
tea,--without dropping a coin. And now the moment had come when I must
test the method of communication as speedily as possible.

CHAPTER XVI

UNDER SURVEILLANCE

I paid my bill, strolled out, and in the doorway encountered a man I
knew slightly--a young officer--with whom I paused to chat, thereby
blocking the doorway temporarily, with the result that I found my f