t was not good to be an Englishman in Petersburg. But I stayed. Tallow!
It does not sound heroic, but the world must have its tallow. And there
is a simplicity about commerce, you know."

He gave a short laugh--the laugh of a man who had tried something and
failed. Something that was not commerce, for his voice and speech had a
ring of other things.

"Can you put me up?" asked Cartoner. "Only for a few days, perhaps."

"As long as you stay in Petersburg you stay in these rooms," replied the
other, gravely.

Cartoner nodded his thanks and sat down. Their attitude towards each
other had the repose which is only existent in a friendship that has
lasted since childhood.

"Well?" he inquired.

"Gad!" exclaimed the other, "we are in a queer way. I went to the opera
the other evening. He showed his face in the imperial box and the house
was empty in half an hour. He always drives alone in his sleigh now, so
that only one royal life may go at a time. They'll get him--they'll get
him! And he knows it."

"Fools!" said Cartoner.

"They are worse than fools," answered the other. "The man is down, and
they strike him. His asthma is worse. He has half a dozen complaints.
His policy has failed. It was the finest policy ever tried in Russia.
He is the finest Czar they have ever had. He gave them trial by jury; he
abolished corporal punishment. Fools! they are the scum of this earth,
Cartoner!"

"I know," replied Cartoner, in his gentle way, "students who cannot
learn--workmen who will not work--women whom no one will marry."

"Yes, the sons and daughters of the serfs that he emancipated. It makes
one sick to talk of them. Let me hear about yourself."

"Well," answered Cartoner, "I have had nothing to eat since breakfast."

"That is all you have to tell me about yourself?"

"That is all."

XXXI

THE PAYMENT

It was on every gossip's tongue in St. Petersburg that Jeliaboff had
been arrested.

"It is the beginning of the end," men said. "They will now catch the
others. The new reign of terror is over."

But Jeliaboff himself--a dangerous man (one of the Terrorists), the
chief of the plot to blow up the imperial train at the Alexandroff
Station--said that it was not so. This also, the mere bravado of an
arrested criminal, was bandied from mouth to mouth.

For two years the most extraordinary agitation of modern days had held
Russian society within its grip. All the world seemed to whisper. Men
walking in the