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Now, when a man of intelligence, speaking the language of the country, backed by the police, the gendarmerie, and the Imperial Army, says “Nein” to me, if I am away from home I generally bow to the will of the people.

So I waited.

Then I heard the low rumble of a train and a short high-keyed shriek–we used to make just such shrieking sounds by blowing into keys when we were boys. The St. Petersburg express was approaching end foremost–the train with the special sleeping-car holding the balance of the circus troupe. The next moment it bumped gently into Car No. 312, holding the Director (I wondered whether he had my berth), the woman with the dog, and her maid.

The gateman paused until the train came to a dead standstill, waited until the last arriving passenger had passed through an exit lower down along the fence, slid back the gate, and I walked through–alone! Not another passenger either before or behind me! And the chocolate gentleman told me the car was full! The fraud!

When I reached the steps of Car No. 312 I found a second gentleman in chocolate and poker-chip buttons. He was scrutinizing a list of sold and unsold compartments by the aid of a conductor’s lantern braceleted on his elbow. He turned the glare of his lantern on my ticket, entered the car and preceded me down its narrow aisle and slid back the door of Number Four. I stepped and discovered, to my relief, my small luggage, hat-box, shawl, and umbrella, safely deposited in the upper berth. My night’s rest, at all events, was assured.

I found also a bald-headed passenger, who was standing with his back to me stowing his small luggage into the lower berth. He looked at me over his shoulder for a moment, moved his bag so that I could pass, and went on with his work. My sharing his compartment had evidently produced an unpleasant impression.

I slipped off my overcoat, found my travelling-cap, and was about to light a fresh cigarette when there came a tap at the door. Outside in the aisle stood a man with a silk hat in his hand.

“Monsieur, I am the Manager of the Compagnie Internationale. It is my pleasure to ask whether you have everything for your comfort. I am going on to Paris with this same train, so I shall be quite within your reach.”

I thanked him for his courtesy, assured him that now that all my traps were in my berth and the conductor had shown me to my compartment, my wants were supplied, and watched him knock at the next door. Then I stepped out into the aisle.

It was an ordinary European Pullman, some ten staterooms in a row, a lavatory at one end and a three-foot sofa at the other. When you are unwilling to take your early morning coffee on the gritty, dust-covered, one-foot-square, propped-up-with-a-leg table in your stuffy compartment, you drink it sitting on this sofa. Three of these compartment doors were open. The woman with the dog was in Number One. The big dog and the maid in Number Two, and the Ring Master in Number Three (his original number, no doubt; the clerk had only lied)–I, of course, came next in Number Four.

Soon I became conscious that a discussion was going on in the newly arrived circus-car whose platform touched ours. I could hear the voice of a woman and then the gruff tones of a man. Then a babel of sounds came sifting down the aisle. I stepped over the dog, who had now stretched himself at full length in the aisle, and out on to the platform.

A third gentleman in chocolate–the porter of the circus-car and a duplicate of our own–was being besieged by a group of people all talking at once and all in different tongues. A mild-eyed, pink-cheeked young man in spectacles was speaking German; a richly dressed woman of thirty-five, very stately and very beautiful, was interpolating in Russian, and a plump, rosy-cheeked, energetic little Englishwoman was hurling English in a way as pointed as it was forcible. Everybody was excited and everybody was angry. Standing in the car-door listening intently was a French maid and two round-faced, wide-collared boys, of say ten and twelve. The dispute was evidently over these two boys, as every attack contained some direct allusion to “mes enfants” or “these children” or “die Kinder,” ending in the forefinger of each speaker being thrust bayonet fashion toward the boys.