Raised about eighteen inches above the floor is a little wooden platform-like structure, about the size of a cigar-shop showcase. A dingy mattress is rolled up at one end of it. As you ruefully feel its straw texture and survey the planks which it is to cover, the hotel-keeper pushes in to tell you that sheets will be put on at once if the _gaspadine_ has not his own. “_Chass! Chass!_ If only the rooms suit the _gaspadine_, everything will be arranged.” The porters silently deposit their loads and depart with their twenty kopecks each. The manager goes out, doubtless to gather his sheets. Only the concierge stays expectant after he has received his tribute. You throw your heavy overcoat over one of the armchairs and begin to open some of the bags. The concierge still stays and looks on. You begin to segregate laundry, and locate brushes and tooth-powder. The concierge still stays and looks on. You get out some slippers which are an improvement upon the heavy snow-boots. The concierge still lingers. “The room is accepted,” you say finally. “Yes, yes,” he answers. “_Haracho_, but for the police, I want, please, your passport.” To show your passport, true enough, is no more of an incident than to take out your handkerchief. But to be obliged before you have been ten minutes in a place to produce a paper for the police telling of your age and infirmities, the color of your eyes, the number of your arms and legs and children, seems tiresome. “Must all give in their passports?” you inquire. “All, all,” he answers. “I am punished if one person stays here overnight without showing it.” He takes the document, visibly impressed with its flying eagle and the big red seal, and bows his way out. Now one can stroll around one’s suite and take in some of the details. There are electric lights with clusters of globes in the big pendant electrolier of the parlor, and drop-lamps for the massive writing-desk in the corner! The armchair by the high-silled window is a good place to read in. Too bad one cannot look out on the shuttling sleighs of the street below, but the cold has thickly frosted the double windows. Here is a big sofa, plush-covered, and half a dozen armchairs surround the polished table, whose top is scarred with a multitude of rings--from the hot tea-glasses, one deduces. Mentioning tea, why not have some? There ought to be a bell somewhere. Unfortunately there is not a bell. In looking for it one finds that Siberian housekeeping does not include any dusting of the heavy red hangings which flank the doors and windows. An imperious cry resounds in the corridor. “_Chelaviek!_” It is followed by a patter of footsteps. So this then is the custom of the country. You open the door, and in the tone described in books upon elocution as “hortatory,” cry out into the dim distances of the corridor, “_Samovar, chai!_” Somewhere down the line a voice answers, “_Chass, chass!_” and you retire to wait and hope.