from the postal administration, the common officers, the hundred obscure civil servants who wear a sword and uniform unworthily in any one of the three European empires.  On the other hand, the men in real authority, and notably the officers of the better regiments, sought to conciliate by politeness and a careful retention of themselves in the background.  But these well-intentioned efforts were of small avail; for racial things are stronger than human endeavor or the careful foresight of statesmen.  Here in Warsaw the Muscovite, the Pole, the Jew—­herding together in the same streets, under the same roof, obedient to one law, acknowledging one sovereign—­were watching each other, hating each other.

At the street corners the smart, quiet police took note of each foot-passenger, every carriage, every stranger passing in a hired droschki.  Cartoner and Deulin could see from the passing glance beneath the flat, green cap that they were seen and recognized at every turn.  On the steps of the station they were watched with a polite pretense of looking the other way by two of the higher officials of the Russian-speaking police.

“I do not mind them,” said Deulin, passing through the doorway to the booking-office.  “It is not of them that we need be afraid.  We are doing no harm, and they cannot send us out of the country while our passports hold out.  They have satisfied themselves as to that.  For they have been through my belongings twice, in my rooms at the Europe—­I know when my things have been touched—­they or some one else.  Perhaps Kosmaroff; who knows?”

Thus he talked on in characteristic fashion, saying a hundred nothings as only Frenchmen and women can, touching life lightly like a skilled musician, running nimble fingers over the keys, and striking a chord half by accident here and there which was sonorous and had a deeper meaning.  He ordered the luncheon, argued with the waiter, and rallied him on the criminal paucity of his menu.

“Yes,” he said, “let it be beef.  I know your mutton.  It tastes like the smell of goat.  So give us beef—­your railway beef, which has travelled so far, but not by train.  It has come on foot, to be killed and cut up by a locomotive, to be served by a waiter who has assuredly failed as a stoker.”

He sat down as he spoke, and rearranged the small table, covered by a doubtful cloth, through which could be felt the chill of the marble underneath.  Deulin always took the lead in these small matters, and Cartoner accepted his decision without comment.  The Frenchman knew him so well, it seemed, that he knew his tastes, or suspected his indifference.  While he thus rattled on he glanced sharply from time to time at his companion, and when the waiter was finally sent away with a hundred minute instructions, he turned suddenly to Cartoner.

“You are absorbed.  What are you thinking about?” he said.

“I was thinking how well you speak Polish.  And yet you have only been here once before,” answered the Englishman, bluntly.