We asked him what the row had been about. He didn't know. He merely remembered that he had gone up the stairs and had been politely received at the door. "I went into the parlor," he said, "called for drinks, and sat down. After a while I thought it would be fun to open my umbrella and hold it over my head. I guess the light must have dazzled me. The next thing, I was shooting down those stairs. They're bally quick here with their bouncer, ain't they!"
The American was strong in Russian, and also stood well with the police in his district, and he was determined that the proprietor of the establishment should give an account of himself. While he and the Englishman went up the stairs I remained below in the street, according to agreement, and called at the top of my voice for a gvardovoi (policeman). Two dvorniks (gate-keepers, but also police underlings) came running up, and most obsequiously begged the gospodeen to tell them what was the matter. Forgetting their police power, I pushed one of them aside, declaring that I wanted a patrolman and not a house porter. General Kleigels, himself, could not have taken umbrage at my indiscretion any more hot-headedly. The dvorniks reached for me instantly, but I ran up the steps to get under the sheltering wing of the American. The dvorniks followed me, and there was a long, heated discussion, but in the end I had to go to the police station, where I absolutely refused to say a single word. The officer searched me, finding in one of my coat pockets the little Englishman's card. He rubbed it on my nose, saying: "Vasch? Vasch?" (Yours? Yours?) but I held my tongue and temper. The man never looked into my hip pockets. In one of them I had a well-filled cardcase, and in the other might have carried a revolver.
He did not seem to know that hip pockets existed. Pretty soon my companions joined me, and a long parley ensued between my fellow-countryman and the officer. Finally my valuables were returned to me, and I was paroled in my friend's custody until I could produce General Kleigels' letter. I did this that same day, about three o'clock. It was plain to read in the officer's face that the document gave him pause. It was probably the first of the kind that he had ever handled, or that General Kleigels had ever issued. But he had insulted me, and knew it, and he apparently reasoned that making any great ado over me or my letter would not help matters if I intended to make him trouble. So, after he had noted down the date and number of the letter, he handed it back to me and pronounced me free to go where I pleased. I shook hands with him, for some strange reason, and I shall never forget the queer way he looked at me and the manner he had of doubling two fingers in his palm when taking mine. If this was meant as a secret sign or signal, it was lost on me.
The wind-up of this little affair with the police was more amusing than the arrest. Not long afterwards, in company with the American Minister and a Scotch friend, I went on a fishing and camping trip to Northern Finland. While we were in camp I received word that I was wanted on a criminal charge in St. Petersburg, but that there was "no need to worry about it." I proceeded leisurely with our party up to the Arctic Circle, and then back to St. Petersburg, when I immediately made inquiry of my house porter about the summons or indictment. The porter laughed. "It was nothing, sir, nothing," he assured me. "One week came the indictment, and the next week the announcement of your acquittal. It was a very simple matter."
I was sure that both proceedings could refer to nothing more serious than the fracas with the dvorniks on the night of my arrest, and I determined to learn what had happened to my two friends, if anything. The American I found at his datscha on one of the islands.
"Did you receive an announcement of your indictment on a criminal charge?" I asked him.
"Yes," he said; "my crime was whistling in a police station."
It seems that the officer in charge, anxious to have his revenge on one of us, selected the resident American, because he thought it best not to press any charge against me and he was unable to locate the little Englishman. The American had whistled unwittingly, and entirely by way of exclamation. I recalled the incident. On the fateful night, while he was pleading with the officer for my release, the latter made several astounding statements, and at one of them my friend could not repress a slight whistle of amazement. I asked him how he came out with the case.
"Loser," he said. "I put the matter in the hands of a lawyer, and he mussed things so that I was fined twenty-five rubles. How did you make out?"