But the very minute Platoff hears these words, he thrusts his hands into his voluminous trousers and draws thence a gunsmith's screw-driver. "This does not unscrew," say the Englishmen. But he, paying no heed, picks away at the lock. He gives it one turn, he gives it another,--and takes out the lock. Platoff shows the catch to the Emperor, and there, on the curve, stands a Russian inscription: "Ivan Moskvin in the town of Tula." The Englishmen marvelled, and nudged one another: "Oh, alas! we have blundered!" But the Emperor says sadly to Platoff: "Why hast thou covered them with such confusion? Now I am very sorry for them. Let us go." They took their places again in the same two-seated carriage, and drove away; and that day the Emperor went to a ball, but Platoff gulped down a still mightier bumper of kizil vodka, and slept a mighty Cossack sleep. He rejoiced that he had put the Englishmen to confusion, and had placed the Tula artisan in the proper light, but he was also vexed. Why had the Emperor felt pity for the Englishmen on such an occasion? "For what reason did the Emperor grieve?" thought Platoff. "I don't understand it at all;" and, engaged in this meditation, he twice arose, crossed himself, and drank vodka until, by sheer force, he brought upon himself a profound sleep. But the Englishmen were not asleep at that time, either, because their heads were whirling round with dizziness. While the Emperor was enjoying himself at the ball, they prepared for him such a fresh marvel that they deprived Platoff of all his fantasy. FOOTNOTES: [6] The Emperor always has a Cossack orderly on the box of his carriage. Platoff has been promoted by the gunsmith to a seat inside. [7] "Half-bucket Apolo" is the old gunsmith's rendering of Apollo Belvedere. [8] Barometers; camel's hair mantles. [9] A mortar. [10] Tzarskoe Selo is a suburban town about sixteen miles from Petrograd, with two Imperial palaces, fine Imperial parks, barracks for the Hussars of the Guard, and so forth. The Arsenal there formerly contained a splendid collection of arms, now removed to the Hermitage Museum, in Petrograd. III The next day, when Platoff presented himself to the Emperor to wish him good-morning, the latter said to him: "Let the two-seated carriage be put to immediately, and let us look at more museums." Platoff went so far as to suggest: "Had they not seen enough foreign products, and would it not be better to betake themselves to Russia?" but the Emperor says: "No, I desire to behold still other novelties. They have boasted to me that they make the very finest sort of sugar here." They drove off. The Englishmen kept showing the Emperor the different prime products they had, but Platoff stared and stared, and suddenly said: "Show us your manufactures of _molva_ sugar."[11]