“I don’t question your word,” he began.
“Are you going?”
He went out into the corridor. “We shall probably require you to come to Warsaw.”
“If you wish to arrest me do it, and be hanged to you.”
“You mustn’t talk like that, and had better leave Bratinsk. So long as you stay here you will be under surveillance—” the rest of his sentence was lost, for I slammed the door in his face.
The attempt at any kind of surveillance over my movements would drive me out of Bratinsk like a shot; and I should have been much more annoyed by the incident but for the fact that I had been daily expecting my visit to be brought to a close by the weather. I had been very lucky to hit such an open season; but it was late in December, and the snow was so long overdue that by leaving at once I should miss very little sport.
I determined to go, therefore. I had a pig-sticking fixed for the following day; and that should be the last.
It was not at all unlikely, too, that Warsaw would afford me some excitement. The papers were full of hints about impending troubles from the strikers and revolutionary party, consequent upon the ominous unrest in St. Petersburg; and I settled that I might as well go there for a couple of days to see the fun, and then rush home for Christmas.
With this plan in my thoughts I strolled up to the railway station to see about trains.
As I reached the building the stationmaster, a very busy little official, named Blauben, came running up to me.