and a stranger
for sole companion. For he was a stranger--wasn't he?--and, by his own
account, not well-to-do. But that Russian had a knack of disarming
suspicion. And, besides, how was it possible for me to have any doubts
about a man who fought as he had over the percentage? It would have been
nonsensical. So I did the rubies up in cotton, put them in a box, and
off we went. On the way to the elevated you ought to have seen how the
people stared at that coat. All the time he kept up a delightful flow of
conversation. He told me any number of interesting things about his
country, and when I asked if he had read 'The Journey Due North' he told
me that he had, and that when Sala was in Russia his father had
entertained him at his country-house a few versts from Moscow. Think of
that, now! Altogether, he made himself most agreeable. I asked him on
the way if he thought that inasmuch as I was to have the honor of seeing
the grand duke it would not be more in accordance with etiquette for me
to put on a dress-coat. But he laughed, and said, no, the grand duke
would never notice. Then he told me some very curious anecdotes about
him--how, for instance, he fainted dead away at the sight of an apple,
and yet kept a balloon and an aeronaut, just as Jones there might keep a
dogcart and a groom. He told me, among other things, that at Petersburg
the grand duke had a pet tiger, which would accept food from no one but
him, and on my asking how the tiger got along when the grand duke was
away, he said that the grand duke had him stuffed. Oh, he was very
entertaining, and spoke English better than you would have imagined. We
walked over from Eighth Street to the hotel, and when we reached it he
took me straight upstairs to his own room. 'If you will sit a minute,'
he said, 'I will see if his Highness can receive you.' He went away, and
I looked about me. The room into which I had been shown was a
sitting-room with a bedroom opening from it. There was a writing-table
standing against the door which led to the adjoining apartment, and
while I was waiting I just glanced at the things with which the table
was littered. There were a number of foreign newspapers, but in what
language they were printed I could not make out; there was a package of
official-looking documents tied with a string, a great blue envelope
addressed in French to the Prince Michel Zaroguine and post-marked
Washington, and back of all, in a frame, the photograph of a ma