Outside these ponderous rooms, under the arching gla.s.s of the station itself, is a broad platform protected from rushing trains and yard engines by a wrought-iron fence, twisted into most enchanting scrolls and pierced down its whole length by sliding wickets, before which stand be-capped and be-b.u.t.toned officials of the road. It is part of the duty of these gatemen never to let you through these wickets until the arrival of the last possible moment compatible with the boarding of your car.

So if you are wise--that is, if you have been left behind several times depending on the watchfulness of these Cerberi and their promises to let you know when your train is ready--you hang about this gate and keep an eye out as to what is going on. I had been two nights on the sleeper through from Warsaw and beyond, and could take no chances.

Then again, I wanted to watch the people coming and going--it is a habit of mine; nothing gives me greater pleasure. It has made me an expert in judging human nature. I flatter myself that I can tell the moment I set my eyes on a man just what manner of life he leads, what language he speaks, whether he be rich or poor, educated or ignorant. I can do all this before he opens his mouth. I have never been proud of this faculty.

I have regarded it more as a gift, as I would an acute sense of color, or a correct eye for drawing, or the ability to acquire a language quickly. I was born that way, I suppose.

The first man to approach the wicket was the Director of the Circus. I knew him at once. There was no question as to _his_ ident.i.ty. He wore a fifty-candle-power stone in his shirt-front, a silk hat that shone like a new hansom cab, and a Prince Albert coat that came below his knees. He had taken off his ring boots, of course, and was without his whip, but otherwise he was completely equipped to raise his hat and say: "Ladies and Gentlemen, the world-renowned," etc., etc., "will now perform the blood-curdling act of," etc.

He was attended by a servant, was smooth-shaven, had an Oriental complexion as yellow as the back of an old law-book, black, jet-black eyes, and jet-black hair.

I listened for some outbreak, some explosion about his bed having been sold from under him, some protest about the rights of a citizen. None came. The gateman merely touched his hat, slid back the gate, and the Director of the Greatest Show on Earth, smiling haughtily, pa.s.sed in, crossed the platform and stepped into a _wagon-lit_ standing on the next track to me labelled "Paris 312," and left me behind. The gateman had had free tickets, of course, or would have, for himself and family whenever the troupe should be in Cologne. There was no doubt of it--I saw it in the smile that permeated his face and the bow that bent his back as the man pa.s.sed him. This kind of petty bribery is, of course, abominable, and should never be countenanced.

Some members of the troupe came next. The gentleman in chocolate with my five francs in his pocket did not mention the name of any other member of the troupe except the Director, but it was impossible for me to be mistaken about these people--I have seen too many of them.

She was rather an imposing-looking woman--not young, not old--dressed in a long travelling-cloak trimmed with fur (how well we know these night-cloaks of the professional!), and was holding by a short leash an enormous Danish hound; one of those great hulking hounds--a hound whose shoulders shake when he walks, with white, blinky eyes, smooth skin, and mottled spots--brown and gray--spattered along his back and ribs. Trick dog, evidently--one who springs at the throat of the a.s.sa.s.sin (the a.s.sa.s.sin has a thin slice of sausage tucked inside his collar-b.u.t.ton), pulls him to the earth, and sucks his life's blood or chews his throat.

She, too, went through with a sweep--the dog beside her, followed by a maid carrying two band-boxes, a fur boa, and a bunch of parasols closely furled and tied with a ribbon. I braced up, threw out my shoulders, and walked boldly up to the wicket. The be-b.u.t.toned and be-capped man looked at me coldly, waved me away with his hand, and said "Nein."

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 b.u.mped 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 pa.s.senger had pa.s.sed through an exit lower down along the fence, slid back the gate, and I walked through--alone! Not another pa.s.senger 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 b.u.t.tons. 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 a.s.sured.

I found also a bald-headed pa.s.senger, 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 pa.s.s, 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, a.s.sured 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.

While I was making up my mind as to the particular roles which these several members of the Greatest Show on Earth played, I heard the English girl say--in French, of course--English-French--with an accent:

"It is a shame to be treated in this way. We have paid for every one of these compartments, and you know it. The young masters will not go in those vile-smelling staterooms for the night. It's no place for them. I will go to the office and complain."

[Ill.u.s.tration: Everybody was excited and everybody was mad.]

The third chocolate attendant, in reply, merely lifted his shoulders. It was the same old lift--a tired feeling seems to permeate these gentlemen, as if they were bored to death. A hotel clerk on the Riviera sometimes has this lift when he tells you he has not a bed in the house and you tell him he--prevaricates. I knew something of the lift--had already cost me five francs. I knew, too, what kind of medicine that sort of tired feeling needed, and that until the bribe was paid the young woman and her party would be bedless.

My own anger was now aroused. Here was a woman, rather a pretty woman, an Anglo-Saxon--my own race--in a strange city and under the power of a minion whose only object was plunder. That she jumped through hoops or rode bareback in absurdly short clothes, or sold pink lemonade in spangles, made no difference. She was in trouble, and needed a.s.sistance.

I advanced with my best bow.

"Madam, can I do anything for you?"

She turned, and, with a grateful smile, said:

"Oh, you speak English?"

I again inclined my head.

"Well, sir, we have come from St. Petersburg by way of Berlin. We had five compartments through to Paris for our party when we started, all paid for, and this man has the tickets. He says we must get out here and buy new tickets or we must all go in two staterooms, which is impossible--" and she swept her hand over the balance of the troupe.

The chocolate gentleman again lifted his shoulders. He had been abused in that way by pa.s.sengers since the day of his birth.

The richly dressed woman, another Leading Lady doubtless, now joined in the conversation--she probably was the trained rabbit-woman or the girl with the pigeons--pigeons most likely, for these stars are always selected by the management for their beauty, and she certainly was beautiful.

"And Monsieur"--this in French--again I spare the reader--"I have given him"--pointing to the chocolate gentleman--"pour boire all the time. One hundred francs yesterday and two gold pieces this morning. My maid is quite right--it is abominable, such treatment----"

The personalities now seemed to weary the attendant. His elbows widened, his shoulders nearly touched his ears, and his fingers opened; then he went into his closet and shut the door. So far as he was concerned the debate was closed.

The memory of my own five francs now loomed up, and with them the recollection of the trick by which they had been stolen from me.

"Madam," I said, gravely, "I will bring the manager. He is here and will see that justice is done you."

It was marvellous to watch what followed. The manager listened patiently to the Pigeon Charmer's explanation of the outrage, started suddenly when she mentioned some details which I did not hear, bowed as low to her reply as if she had been a d.u.c.h.ess--his hat to the floor--slid back the closet-door, beckoned me to step in, closed it again upon the three of us, and in less than five minutes he had the third chocolate gentleman out of his chocolate uniform and stripped to his underwear, with every pocket turned inside out, bringing to light the one-hundred-franc note, the gold pieces, and all five of the circus parties' tickets.

Then he flung the astonished and humiliated man his trousers, waited until he had pulled them on, grabbed him by his shirt-collar and marched him out of the car across the platform through the wicket gate, every pa.s.senger on the train looking on in wonder. Five minutes later the whole party--the stately Pigeon Charmer, her English maid, the spectacled German (performing sword-swallower or lightning calculator probably), and the two boys (tumblers unquestionably), with all their belongings--were transferred to my car, the Pigeon Charmer graciously accepting my escort, the pa.s.sengers, including the bald-headed man--my room-mate--standing on one side to let us pa.s.s: all except the big dog, who had shifted his quarters, and was now stretched out at the sofa end of the car.

Then another extraordinary thing happened--or rather a series of extraordinary things.

When I had deposited the Pigeon Charmer in her own compartment (Number Five, next door), and had entered my own, I found my bald-headed room-mate again inside. This time he was seated by the foot-square, dust-covered table a.s.sorting cigarettes. He had transferred my small luggage--bag, coat, etc.--to the _lower_ berth, and had arranged his own belongings in the upper one.

He sprang to his feet the instant he saw me.

The bow of the Sleeping-Car Manager to the Pigeon Charmer was but a bend in a telegraph-pole to the sweep the bald-headed man now made me. I thought his scalp would touch the car-floor.

"No, your Highness," he cried, "I insist"--this to my protest that I had come last--that he had prior right--besides, he was an older man, etc., etc.--"I could not sleep if I thought you were not most comfortable--nothing can move me. Pardon me--will not your Highness accept one of my poor cigarettes? They, of course, are not like the ones you use, but I always do my best. I have now a new cigarette-girl, and she rolled them for me herself, and brought them to me just as I was leaving St. Petersburg. Permit me"--and he handed me a little leather box filled with Russian cigarettes.

Now, figuratively speaking, when you have been buncoed out of five francs by a menial in a ticket-office, jumped upon and trampled under foot by a gate-keeper who has kept you cooling your heels outside his wicket while your inferiors have pa.s.sed in ahead of you--to have even a bald-headed man kotow to you, give you the choice berth in the compartment, move your traps himself, and then apologize for offering you the best cigarette you ever smoked in your life--well! that is to have myrrh, and frankincense, and oil of balsam, and balm of Gilead poured on your tenderest wound.

I accepted the cigarette.

Not haughtily--not even condescendingly--just as a matter of course. He had evidently found out who and what I was. He had seen me address the Pigeon Charmer, and had recognized instantly, from my speech and bearing--both, perhaps--that dominating vital force, that breezy independence which envelops most Americans, and which makes them so popular the world over. In thus kotowing he was only getting in line with the citizens of most of the other effete monarchies of Europe.

Every traveller is conscious of it. His bow showed it--so did the soft purring quality of his speech. Recollections of Manila, Santiago, and the voyage of the Oregon around Cape Horn were in the bow, and Kansas wheat, Georgia cotton, and the Steel Trust in the dulcet tones of his voice. That he should have mistaken me for a great financial magnate controlling some one of these colossal industries, instead of locating me instantly as a staid, gray-haired, and rather impecunious landscape-painter, was quite natural. Others before him have made that same mistake. Why, then, undeceive him? Let it go--he would leave in the morning and go his way, and I should never see him more. So I smoked on, chatting pleasantly and, as was my custom, summing him up.

He was perhaps seventy--smooth-shaven--black--coal-black eyes. Dressed simply in black clothes--not a jewel--no watch-chain even--no rings on his hands but a plain gold one like a wedding-ring. His dressing-case showed the gentleman. Bottles with silver tops--brushes backed with initials--soap in a silver cup. Red morocco Turkish slippers with pointed toes; embroidered smoking-cap--all appointments of a man of refinement and of means. Tucked beside his razor-case were some books richly bound, and some bundles tied with red tape. Like most educated Russians, he spoke English with barely an accent.

I was not long in arriving at a conclusion. No one would have been--no one of my experience. He was either a despatch-agent connected with the Government, or some lawyer of prominence, who was on his way to Paris to look after the interests of some client of his in Russia. The latter, probably. The only man on the car he seemed to know, besides myself, was the Sleeping-Car Manager, who lifted his hat to him as he pa.s.sed, and the Ring Master, with whom he stood talking at the door of his compartment. This, however, was before I had brought the Pigeon Charmer into the car.