Page:The Boy Travellers in the Russian Empire.djvu/98

92 Nicholas, tells how he was dropped just over the boundary in Prussia in the middle of a dark and rainy night, and left standing in the road with his baggage, fully a mile from any house. The officer who accompanied him was ordered to escort him over the frontier, and did it exactly. Probably his passenger was a trifle obstinate, or he would not have been left in such a plight. A little politeness, and possibly a few shillings in money, would have induced the officer to bring him to the boundary in the daytime, and in the neighborhood of a habitation.

"Expelled foreigners have rarely any cause to complain of the incivility of their escorts. I know a Frenchman who was thus taken to the frontier after a notice of two days, and he told me that he could not have received greater civility if he had been the guest of the Emperor, and going to St. Petersburg instead of from it. He added that he tried to outdo his guardians in politeness, and further admitted that he richly deserved expulsion, as he had gone to the Empire on a revolutionary mission. On the whole, he considered himself fortunate to have escaped so easily."

The conversation led to anecdotes about the police system of Russia, and at their termination our friends found themselves at the door of the hotel. Naturally, they shifted to other topics as soon as they were in the presence of others. It was an invariable rule of our friends not to discuss in the hearing of any one else the politics of the countries they were visiting.