"The truth is," continued Martin, in his quick and rather heedless way,
"that we Poles are under a cloud in Europe now. We are the wounded man
by the side of the road from Jerusalem down to Jericho, and there is a
tendency to pass by on the other side. We are a nation with a bad want,
and it is nobody's business to satisfy it. Everybody is ready, however,
to admit that we have been confoundedly badly treated."

He tossed off his coffee as he spoke, and turned in his chair to nod
an acknowledgment to the profound bows of a gold-laced official who had
approached him, and who now tendered an envelope, with some murmured
words of politeness.

"Thank you--thank you," said Prince Martin, and slipped the envelope
within his pocket.

"It is my passport," he explained to Cartoner, lightly. "All the rest of
you will receive yours when you are in the train. Mine is the doubtful
privilege of being known here, and being a suspected character. So they
are doubly polite and doubly watchful. As for you, at Alexandrowo
you rejoice in a happy obscurity. You will pass in with the crowd, I
suppose."

"I always try to," replied Cartoner. Which was strictly true.

"You see," went on Martin, not too discreetly, considering their
environments, "we cannot forget that we were a great nation before there
was a Russian Empire or an Austrian Empire or a German Empire. We are
a landlady who has seen better days; who has let her lodgings to three
foreign gentlemen who do not pay the rent--who make us clean their boots