Now, figuratively speaking, when you have been buncoed out of five francs by a menial in a ticket-office, jumped upon and trampled under foot by a gate-keeper who has kept you cooling your heels outside his wicket while your inferiors have passed in ahead of you--to have even a bald-headed man kotow to you, give you the choice berth in the compartment, move your traps himself, and then apologize for offering you the best cigarette you ever smoked in your life--well! that is to have myrrh, and frankincense, and oil of balsam, and balm of Gilead poured on your tenderest wound. I accepted the cigarette. Not haughtily--not even condescendingly--just as a matter of course. He had evidently found out who and what I was. He had seen me address the Pigeon Charmer, and had recognized instantly, from my speech and bearing--both, perhaps--that dominating vital force, that breezy independence which envelops most Americans, and which makes them so popular the world over. In thus kotowing he was only getting in line with the citizens of most of the other effete monarchies of Europe. Every traveller is conscious of it. His bow showed it--so did the soft purring quality of his speech. Recollections of Manila, Santiago, and the voyage of the Oregon around Cape Horn were in the bow, and Kansas wheat, Georgia cotton, and the Steel Trust in the dulcet tones of his voice. That he should have mistaken me for a great financial magnate controlling some one of these colossal industries, instead of locating me instantly as a staid, gray-haired, and rather impecunious landscape-painter, was quite natural. Others before him have made that same mistake. Why, then, undeceive him? Let it go--he would leave in the morning and go his way, and I should never see him more. So I smoked on, chatting pleasantly and, as was my custom, summing him up. He was perhaps seventy--smooth-shaven--black--coal-black eyes. Dressed simply in black clothes--not a jewel--no watch-chain even--no rings on his hands but a plain gold one like a wedding-ring. His dressing-case showed the gentleman. Bottles with silver tops--brushes backed with initials--soap in a silver cup. Red morocco Turkish slippers with pointed toes; embroidered smoking-cap--all appointments of a man of refinement and of means. Tucked beside his razor-case were some books richly bound, and some bundles tied with red tape. Like most educated Russians, he spoke English with barely an accent.