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Idle Ideas in 1905 by Jerome K. (Jerome Klapka) Jerome
page 90 of 189 (47%)
It did cost them a pretty penny. Some half a dozen policemen were
round about before as many minutes had elapsed, and each one claimed
his bribe. Then they wished both combatants good-night, and trooped
out evidently in great good humour and the two gentlemen, with wet
napkins round their heads, sat down again, and laughter and amicable
conversation flowed freely as before.

They strike the stranger as a childlike people, but you are possessed
with a haunting sense of ugly traits beneath. The workers--slaves it
would be almost more correct to call them--allow themselves to be
exploited with the uncomplaining patience of intelligent animals.
Yet every educated Russian you talk to on the subject knows that
revolution is coming.

But he talks to you about it with the door shut, for no man in Russia
can be sure that his own servants are not police spies. I was
discussing politics with a Russian official one evening in his study
when his old housekeeper entered the room--a soft-eyed grey-haired
woman who had been in his service over eight years, and whose
position in the household was almost that of a friend. He stopped
abruptly and changed the conversation. So soon as the door was
closed behind her again, he explained himself.

"It is better to chat upon such matters when one is quite alone," he
laughed.

"But surely you can trust her," I said, "She appears to be devoted to
you all."

"It is safer to trust no one," he answered. And then he continued
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