People came and went, policemen marched through the room; officials arrived, hung their great-coats on the wall, disappeared in the inner rooms, re-appeared, put on their coats and went out into the darkness. The clerk filled in the printed forms, and smoked cigarettes with equal assiduity. It was the sort of thing that might continue without change as long as the Russian empire endures. At last there was a diversion. Tsintsius arrived with the Anglo-Russian correspondent and Mac--the energetic man had arrested both of them. The Anglo-Russian correspondent recognizing me, and cognizant that he had been the cause of my arrest, opened with an apology, and I, full of resentment towards him, started on a wordy attack. Mac looked on silently, pityingly, wonderingly, and full to the eyelids of his own woes. “If you _were_ asked where I might be found, it would have been easy to say that you did not know--and, if you were born and raised in Russia and have not learned to say, ‘I don’t know,’ to any and every question asked you, I should just like to meet the people with whom you have associated?” He is a good-hearted, generous fellow, always acknowledging his fault, blaming himself, and apologizing profusely--the sort of man who gets on my nerves at once. “Yes, yes, I know I ought to have said, ‘I don’t know,’ but I didn’t know, and----” “Oh, don’t talk to me! And don’t get new--for I can’t stand that.” We were interrupted by a new arrival--none other than the officer of Gendarmes who had Mac in his charge. He strode to Tsintsius, and began a clamorous altercation, which almost immediately developed into a fight. The enraged officer clutched the detective by the throat, twisted him over backwards and commenced belabouring him unmercifully. Tsintsius would then and there have suffered the half-death he merited, had not the officials separated the combatants. Truly, Russian officials have great affection for each other. The trouble had arisen from the officiousness of Tsintsius in arresting Mac; the officer declared he had him in charge all the time; the detective declared that he had not. Their difference ended with the arrival of the Chief of Police, and soon Mac was through, the officer undertaking to get him out of Port Arthur by the next train. Then my turn came. Fortunately my papers were found to be in order. My passport had been duly registered, but the police had not been notified of changes of address. I informed the chief that I had produced my passport when I engaged rooms, but had been informed by the proprietors that as it had already been endorsed no further formalities were necessary. If they were, the proprietors, who were Russians, were in a position to know of what had been ordered better than myself, a stranger.