not read a word of English, of course, but from the big red American
seal he could recognize it as an official document.

Suddenly, he tore it in halves, and as the Jew tried to grab it out of
his hands, he cuffed the Jew down, and continued deliberately to tear it
into tiny bits.

"I am an American and that is my passport," the Jew cried.

"That's what I think of an American passport," the overseer replied,
looking us over with incredible impudence as he walked away.

The rest of Russian officialdom must regard American rights in much the
same way, since it is four months now that we have been detained.

I went to the headquarters of the secret police the other day with Mr.
Douglas. It is located in the opposite end of the town, down a quiet
side street--an unobtrusive, one-storied brown house that gives the
impression of trying to hide itself from people's notice. It is reached
by a narrow, stone-flagged path, crowded in between two houses which
block its view from the street. There are four windows in a row on the
front facade, all with the curtains drawn. These four blind windows add
to the secretive appearance. Over the front steps the yellowing leaves
of a lime tree rustled in the wind and detached themselves one by one.

We rang the bell. While we waited, I was conscious of being watched,
and, glancing up quickly, I saw the curtain at one of the windows fall
back into place. The door opened a crack, and a white face with a long,
thin nose, and horn-rimmed spectacles with smoky glass to hide the eyes,
peered out at us furtively. Mr. Douglas handed the spy his card and the
door was shut softly in our faces.

In about three minutes the door was opened again, and a gendarme in
uniform ushered us into a long room thick with stale tobacco-smoke. He
gave me a chair, and while we waited I looked about at the walls with
the brightly colored portraits of the Czar and the Czarina and the royal
family, and the ikon in one corner. "Give up all hope all ye who enter
here."

The room was silent except for the scratch of pens on paper. The
secret-service spies sat at long tables, writing laboriously, and
smoking. They all wore civilian clothes, and I recognized most of them.
I had passed them on the street or sat beside them in restaurants, and
three had come with the chief to arrest us. I wondered what they were
writing. Some one was being betrayed or ruined. That was how they lived.
I looked for the mark of their calli