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By this time the people on the platform had begun to show considerable interest in the proceedings, to my intense amusement, and came crowding around a bit.

“I shall be delighted,” I replied; and accordingly the Prince gave a word of command to those in attendance, a guard of soldiers was formed, and I was in this way escorted to the first of a string of carriages in waiting.

“To the Palace at full gallop,” cried the Prince in a tone loud enough to reach the by-standers. Some one raised a shout of “God save the Emperor,” and in another minute we were off to the accompaniment of loud cries and ringing cheers from the crowd, which was by that time a pretty big one.

That was my sensational entrance into the capital. Here I am at the Czar’s Palace, and from what I can judge there’s a great deal more of the same kind to follow.

“Which is why I remark,

And my language is plain,

That for ways that are dark

And for tricks that are vain,

The Russian at Home is peculiar.

And the same I shall hope to explain”—another time.