We arrived at Vologda Station some time in the evening. The station was crowded with peasants. While I was watching the crowd a drunken peasant entered and asked everybody to give him ten kopecks. Then he caught sight of me and said that he was quite certain I would give him ten kopecks. I did, and he danced a kind of wild dance and finally collapsed on the floor. A man was watching these proceedings, a fairly respectably dressed man in a pea-jacket. He entered into conversation with me, and said that he had just come back from Manchuria, where he had been employed at Mukden Station. “In spite of which,” he added, “I have not yet received a medal.” I said that I had also been in Manchuria. He said he lived twenty versts up the line, and came to the station to look at the people--it was so amusing. “Have you any acquaintances here?” he asked. I said “No.” “Then let us go and have tea.” I was willing, and we went to the tea-shop, which was exactly opposite the station. “Here,” said the man, “we will talk of what was, of what is, and of what is to be.” As we were walking in a policeman who was standing by the door whispered in my ear, “I shouldn’t go in there with that _gentleman_.” “Why?” I asked. “Well, he’s not quite reliable,” he answered in the softest of whispers. “How?” I asked. “Well, he killed a man yesterday and then robbed him,” said the policeman. So then I hurriedly expressed my regret to my acquaintance, and said that I must at all costs return to the station. “The policeman has been lying to you,” said the man. “It’s a lie; it’s only because I haven’t got a passport.” (This was not exactly a recommendation in itself.) I went into the first-class waiting-room. The man came and sat down next to me, and now that I examined his face I saw that he had the expression and the stamp of countenance of a born thief. One of the waiters came and told him to go, and he flatly refused, and the waiter made a low bow to him. Then gently but firmly I advised him to go away, as it might lead to trouble. He finally said: “All right, but we shall meet in the train, in liberty.” He went away, but he sent an accomplice, who stood behind my chair, and who also had the expression of a thief. After waiting for several hours I approached the train for Yaroslav. Just as I was getting in a small boy came up to me and said in a whisper, “The policeman sent me to tell you that the man is a well-known thief, that he robs people every day, and that he gets into the train, even into the first-class carriages, and robs people, and he is after you now.” I entered a first-class carriage and told the guard there was a thief about. I had not been there long before the accomplice arrived and began walking up and down the corridor. But the guard, I am happy to say, turned him out instantly, and I saw nothing more of the thief and of his accomplice.