ances created. It seemed strange--stranger
than I can tell--to think that the central figure in the cluster of men
and women, chatting here under the trees like the most ordinary
individual in the land, was a man who could open his lips and ships
would fly through the waves, locomotives would speed over the plains,
couriers would hurry from village to village, a hundred telegraphs would
flash the word to the four corners of an Empire that stretches its vast
proportions over a seventh part of the habitable globe, and a countless
multitude of men would spring to do his bidding. I had a sort of vague
desire to examine his hands and see if they were of flesh and blood,
like other men's. Here was a man who could do this wonderful thing, and
yet if I chose I could knock him down. The case was plain, but it
seemed preposterous, nevertheless--as preposterous as trying to knock
down a mountain or wipe out a continent. If this man sprained his
ankle, a million miles of telegraph would carry the news over mountains
--valleys--uninhabited deserts--under the trackless sea--and ten thousand
newspapers would prate of it; if he were grievously ill, all the nations
would know it before the sun rose again; if he dropped lifeless where he
stood, his fall might shake the thrones of half a world! If I could
have stolen his coat, I would have done it. When I meet a man like
that, I want something to remember him by.

As a general thing, we have been shown through palaces by some
plush-legged filagreed flunkey or other, who charged a franc for it; but
after talking with the company half an hour, the Emperor of Russia and
his family conducted us all through their mansion themselves. They made
no charge. They seemed to take a real pleasure in it.

We spent half an hour idling through the palace, admiring the cosy
apartments and the rich but eminently home-like appointments of the
place, and then the Imperial family bade our party a kind good-bye, and
proceeded to count the spoons.

An invitation was extended to us to visit the palace of the eldest son,
the Crown Prince of Russia, which was near at hand. The young man was
absent, but the Dukes and Countesses and Princes went over the premises
with us as leisurely as was the case at the Emperor's, and conversation
continued as lively as ever.

It was a little after one o'clock, now. We drove to the Grand Duke
Michael's, a mile away, in response to his invitation, previously given.