At the same time, I pointed a decisive forefinger in the direction in which I thought the count was concealed.  The obsequious menial took our cards, bowed low, and invited us to enter with true servant’s hospitality.

In all Russian houses, as, doubtless, everybody knows, the first floor is given up to an antechambre, where guests remove their wraps and goloshes, and behind this room are the kitchen and servants’ quarters.  All the living-rooms of the family are generally on the floor above.  Having once entered this antechambre, my Bob Acres courage began to ooze.

“Now, I am not going to be rude,” I said.  “We’ll just pretend to be taking off our wraps until we find whether we can be received.  I don’t mind forcing myself on a servant, but I do object to inconveniencing the master of the house.

“You’re weakening,” said Jimmie, derisively.  “You’re scared!”

“I am not,” I declared, indignantly.  “I am only trying to be polite, and it’s a hard pull, I can tell you, when I want anything as much as I want to see Tolstoy.  If he won’t see us after he reads that letter, I can at least go away knowing that I put forth my best efforts to see him, but if I had taken a servant’s refusal, I should feel myself a coward.”

I looked anxiously at my friends for approval.  Jimmie and the consul looked dubious, but Bee and Mrs. Jimmie patted me on the back and said I had done just right.

While we were engaged in this conversation, and while the man was still up-stairs, the door from the kitchen burst open, and in came a handsome young fellow of about eighteen, whistling.  Now my brother whistles and slams doors just like this young Russian.  So my understanding of boys made me feel friendly with this one at once.  Seeing us, he stopped and bowed politely.

“Good morning,” I said, cheerfully.  “We are Americans, and we have travelled five thousand miles for the purpose of seeing Count Tolstoy, and when we got here this morning the servant wouldn’t even let us in until I made him, and we are waiting to see if the count will receive us.”

“Why, I am just sure papa will see you,” said the boy in perfect English.  “How disgusting of Dmitri.  He is a blockhead, that Dmitri.  I shall tell mamma how he treated you.  The idea of leaving you standing down here while he took your cards up.”

“It is partly our fault,” I said, defending Dmitri.  “We sent him up to ask.”

“Nevertheless, he should have had you wait in the salon.  Dmitri is a fool.”

“His manner wasn’t very cordial,” I admitted, as we followed him up-stairs and into a large well-furnished, but rather plain, room containing no ornaments.

“But as I had a letter from the ambassador,” I went on, “I felt that I must at least present it.”

The boy turned back, as he started to leave the room, and said: 

“Oh!  From Mr. White?  Your ambassador wrote about you, and also some friends of ours from Petersburg.  Papa has been expecting you this long time.  He would have been so annoyed if he had failed to see you.  I’ll tell him how badly Dmitri treated you.  What must you think of the Russians?”