collision with that post-office regulation before. I remarked that I
regretted not being able to certify to ourselves with our passports, as
they had not been returned to us. He declared that the passports were
quite unnecessary as a means of identification; my word was sufficient.
But he flew into a rage over the detention of the passports. That
something decidedly vigorous took place over those papers, and that the
landlord of our hotel was to blame, it was easy enough to gather from
the meek air and the apologies with which they were handed to us, a
couple of hours later. The chief dispatched his orderly on the spot with
my post-office petition. During the man's absence, the chief brought in
and introduced to me his wife, his children, and his dogs, and showed me
over his house and garden. We were on very good terms by the time the
orderly returned with the signature of the prefect (who had never seen
us) certifying to our signatures, on faith. The baron sealed the
petition for me with his biggest coat of arms, and posted it, and the
letters came promptly and regularly. Thereafter, for the space of our
four months' stay in the place, the baron and I saluted when we met. We
even exchanged "shakehands," as foreigners call the operation, and the
compliments of the day, in church, when the baron escorted royalty. I
think he was a Lutheran, and went to that church when etiquette did not
require his presence at the Russian services, where I was always to be
found.

As, during those four months, I obtained several very special privileges
which required the prefect's signature,--as foreigners were by no
means common residents there,--and as I had become so well known by
sight to most of the police force of the town that they saluted me when
I passed, and their dogs wagged their tails at me and begged for a
caress, I imagined that I was properly introduced to the authorities,
and that they could lay hands upon me at any moment when the necessity