“Allow me to welcome you to the capital in my august master’s name. I am Prince Kalkov, and His Majesty has instructed me to conduct you to the Palace. Will you accompany me?”
By this time the people on the platform had begun to show considerable interest in the proceedings, to my intense amusement, and came crowding around a bit.
“I shall be delighted,” I replied; and accordingly the Prince gave a word of command to those in attendance, a guard of soldiers was formed, and I was in this way escorted to the first of a string of carriages in waiting.
“To the Palace at full gallop,” cried the Prince in a tone loud enough to reach the by-standers. Some one raised a shout of “God save the Emperor,” and in another minute we were off to the accompaniment of loud cries and ringing cheers from the crowd, which was by that time a pretty big one.
That was my sensational entrance into the capital. Here I am at the Czar’s Palace, and from what I can judge there’s a great deal more of the same kind to follow.
“Which is why I remark,
And my language is plain,
That for ways that are dark
And for tricks that are vain,
The Russian at Home is peculiar.