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Rh thin, tightly closed, rather cruel lips, an impenetrable face, and cold gray eyes. He had the suavity and courteous manners of the accomplished gendarme officer, but the unfavorable impression that he made upon me at our first meeting was deepened, rather than effaced, by subsequent acquaintance. He was in undress uniform, and he greeted me with what he evidently intended for frank, open cordiality, softening, so far as possible, all the hard lines of his face; but he could not bring a spark of good fellowship into his cold, watchful gray eyes, and I felt conscious that all his real mental processes were carefully masked. So far as I could read his character, its one weak point was personal pride in the importance and responsibility of his position—pride in the fact that he, a mere captain of gendarmes, had been selected in St. Petersburg and sent to Siberia to command this important prison; had been freed from all local control; and had been given the unusual privilege of communicating directly with the Minister of the Interior, which was the next thing to communicating directly with the Tsar. It seemed to me that a man who felt such a pride, and who knew that in spite of his position he was despised by all the regular army-officers at the post, would be gratified to find that an intelligent American, living in the very house of one of his (Nikólin's) enemies, had clearness of insight and independence of judgment enough to call upon him the moment Pótulof's restraint was removed, and to treat him with marked deference and respect. To what extent this reasoning was well founded I do not know, but upon it I acted. I apologized for not calling upon him before, and explained that I had been prevented from doing this by circumstances beyond my control. He bowed gracefully, said that he understood the circumstances perfectly, and asked me to do him the honor of drinking tea with him. A steaming samovár was soon brought in by a soldier, our cups were filled with the beverage that cheers but does not inebriate, cigarettes were lighted, and we settled