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Rh per cent., and he should take back his goods, and return me my money. But he was not willing to yield to either one or the other, so I could only follow the advice of my friends, and inform the police of the fraud, in order to get back my money. Whilst at the police-office, I was, to my surprise, arrested by an order of the governor, and taken before him. The first inquiry he made was about my passport ; I produced it, and after a strict examination of its contents, he began to question me, why I had let seven days pass without having presented it to the legal authorities? I simply replied, that living in a public hotel, where no one asked me for it, I thought such a course unnecessary. This reply seemed unsatisfactory to the governor. He dwelt upon the fact, that as I knew fourteen different languages, I ought to be acquainted with the Russian, for I was then conversing with him in French; he also said that as I had asserted I was an European Christian, clad in oriental costume, I must enter the category of spies, especially as I had been audacious enough to attempt to injure one of the most respectable mercantile-houses, by casting a blemish on its character, and for which he would himself be security. I was led back again to the police-office as a prisoner, where I was detained from nine o'clock in the morning till three in the afternoon, without their offering me so much as a seat. Meanwhile a police officer was dispatched to the hotel, where my room was opened, and everything rummaged, but they could find nothing suspicious. Whilst they were thus engaged in the examination of my effects, my horse arrived, and was put in the stable. When the police officer -saw my horse, he came to me and pressed me to sell it to him, but I declared that having destined it as a present to my legitimate sovereign, I would not sell it for any price. At three o'clock, I was informed that the passport which they gave me at Orenburg, and which ought to have been sufficient to convey me to my native country, must remain at the police-office, and instead of that, I was to receive an official certificate, with which I was ordered to depart for Moscow within twenty-four