suspicion of a squint were everywhere at
once; that he grinned Mr. Wright as Paul
Pry's grin incessantly; that he was always
hoping he didn't intrude, and that he did
intrude most confoundedly.

"Police?" I asked the Russian in a whisper.

My accomplished friend elevated and then
depressed his eyebrows in token of acquiescence,
and added "Orloff!"

"But Count Orloff is in Paris," I ventured
to remark.

"I say Orloff when I speak of ces gens là,"
answered the Russian. "He is of the secret
police—Section des Étrangers—counsellor
of a college, if you know what that is? Gives
capital dinners."

"Do you know him?"

"I know him!" repeated the Russian; and,
for the first time during our acquaintance,
I saw the expression of something like
emotion in his face—and this expressed
contemptuous indignation. "My dear sir, we
do not know ces gens là, nous autres."

Mr. Wright was at home immediately.
He shook hands with Captain Steffens as if
he would have his hand off, clapped the first
mate on the shoulder; who, for his part, I
grieve to say, looked as if he would like to
knock his head off; and addressed a few words
in perfect English to the nearest passengers.
Then he took the captain's arm quite amicably,
and took the locked portfolio and the
gleaming teeth (they were not Mr. Carker's
teeth, but Mr. Wright's), and himself into
the saloon. I was so fascinated at the sight
of this smiling banshee that I should have
followed him into the cabin; but the wary
polizeis, who had already turned everybody
out of the saloon in the most summary, and
not the most courteous manner, now formed
a cordon across the entrance, and left us
outside the paradise of the Prussian Eagle, like
peris rather than passengers.

Captain Steffens, Mr. Wright, the two
superior helmets, the thirty passports and
the additional documents—which I conjecture
to have been our lives and adventures from
the earliest period to the present time,
compiled by the Russian consul at Stettin, and
the secretary of legation at Berlin, with notes
by Captain Steifens, and a glossary by Mr.
Wright—were closeted in the saloon from a
quarter to one to a quarter to four p.m., by
which time (as the Preussischer Adler had
fulfilled her contract in bringing us to Cronstadt,
Cronstadt, and would give us neither bite nor sup
more), I was sick with hunger, and kinder
streaked with rage. What they did in the
saloon during this intolerable delay, whether
they painted miniatures of us through some
concealed spyhole, or played upon the piano,
or witnessed a private performance of
Bombastes Furioso by Mr. Wright, or went to
sleep, no man could tell. The wag from the
South of France, who, notwithstanding the
rigid surveillance, had managed to creep
round to the wheel, came back with a report
that the conclave were drinking champagne,
and smoking cigars. The story was not
unlikely; but how was such an incorrigible
joker to be believed? For three hours then,
there was nothing to be done but to satisfy
myself that the polizeis were really shirtless,
and to struggle with an insane desire to
upon my portmanteau and open it,
precisely because it was sealed up. The
other passengers were moody, and my
Russian friend was not nearly so fond of me as he
was at sea. For, you must understand, my
passport was good to Cronstadt; but once
arrived there, there was another process of
whitewashing to be gone through; and, to be
intimate with a man whose papers might not be
be in rule might compromise even nous
autres.

The port of Cronstadt was very thronged
and lively, and I feasted my eyes upon some
huge English steamers from Hull and other
northern English ports. It did me good to
see the Union Jack; but where were the
gunboats, Mr. Bull? Ah! where were the
gunboats? Failing these, there were plenty
of Russian gunboats—black, saucy, trim,
diabolical, little crafts enough, which were
steaming about as if in search of some stray
infernal machine that might have been
overlooked since the war time. Far away
through the grove of masts, I could descry
the monarchs of the forests, the huge, half-
masted hulks of the Russian line-of-battle
ships. The stars and stripes of the great
American republic were very much to the
fore this Tuesday morning; and, as I found
afterwards, the American element was what
Americans would term almighty strong in
Russia. There was nothing to be seen of
Cronstadt, the town, but the spires of some
churches, some thundering barracks, the dome
of the museum, and forts, forts, forts. But
Cronstadt the port was very gay with dancing
skiffs, and swift men-o'-war boats with their
white-clad crews, and little coteries of coquettish
yachts. The sky was so bright, the
water so blue, the flags so varied, the yachts
so rakish and snowy-sailed, that I could have
fancied myself for a moment in Kingstown
harbour, on my way to Dublin, instead of
St. Petersburg but for the forts, forts, forts.

While I was viewing these things and
cursing Mr. Wright (was it for this that he
won our hearts at the Adelphi for so many
years, inveigling us out of so many half-price
shillings, and insidiously concealing the fact
of his connection with Count Orloff—now
Prince Dolgorouki's secret police?), while I
was smoking very nearly the last cigar that I
was to smoke in the open air so near St.
Petersburg, there had glided alongside and
nestled under the shadow of our big paddle-
boxes a tiny war-steamer, or pyroscaphe,
with a St. Andrew or blue X cross on a white
flag at her stern, and another little flag
at her fore, compounded of different crosses and
colours, and looking curiously like a Union