the Court standing near the window and crossing themselves as the Czar stood motionless beneath the gilded and fretted canopy,—­I could have recalled it all ... but I swore profanely and declared emphatically that ALL RELIGION WAS A COBWEB AND A SNARE to emancipated minds....  I pretended to get violently MAD about it and told him I would strangle any man who insulted me by accusing me of the most distant relationship with any religion excepting the religion of FREE LOVE....  He laughed like a lion with a sliver in its paw.  ’You are absolutely the best COUNTERFEIT in circulation that I know of!’ he guffawed.  ’Well, I’m going to fire Syvorotka and put you in charge of a little FIRING SQUAD when we get to our camping ground at Ekaterinburg!’ were his exact words, half whispered, half insinuated and wholly growled across the table in the diner....  With assumed hostility I actually barked:  ’The dirtier the deviltry the more diverting!’...  He opened his eyes widely like one emerging from a solemn drunk and WINKED knowingly as he shook my hand....  ’You know where Kerensky got his orders to release our fellows, of course,’ he whispered.  ’I guess you KNOW why he sent some people to Ekaterinburg a couple of days before the Czecho-Slovaks are scheduled to take it, and I guess you know too how it happened that so many MOTOR TRUCKS came all the way from Archangel to Ekaterinburg so as to be on hand when a certain Indian officer shows up, the ridiculous ranter raved....  But....”

“...  If these lines should ever come to light I want to record right now, in justice to that apparently besotted creature, that I am under unutterable obligations to him for assigning to me the most diabolical piece of brutality that has been conceived during this period of moral leprosy and unrepenting malevolence.... I shall do my work well.”

22.  Then the following odds and ends appear: 

“...  The Metropole performer is a Baroness sure enough....  She knows a Syvorotka but declines to give his rank or whereabouts....  She tells me that this place was founded by Count Tatischshev in 1721 ... when Catherine was a baby....  The Monastery of ‘Our Lady of Tikhvin’ looming up before me is a very graceful compliment to the Mosque of St. Sophia it resembles in so many ways.... fine place to radio from to friends at Odessa ... especially if the NUN has been obeying orders....  Lvov is out of the way, over in the city prison, cooking, where he can’t betray the prisoners at Ipatiev’s....  When I was alone with my Imperial prisoner I tore the patch off from my shirt sleeve and handed it to him.... ‘Sa lettre!’ he exclaimed in an undertone....  His manner was exceedingly polite.... ‘Ouvrez, lisez,’ I advised.... ‘Oui, oui, je sais! je sais!’ he said softly, ’mais malheureusement cela est impossible!’...  ‘Soak it in water’, I replied.... ‘Et vous, monsieur, etes-vous americain ou francais?’ he came back....