"What for?" Yevsey asked again.
"I don't know. Some sort of patriots."
The black-bearded man explained:
"Since this morning tramps waving tri-colored flags and carrying portraits of the Czar have been marching the streets and beating the decently clad people."
"Sasha!" Yevsey repeated to himself.
"They say it was organized by the police and the Department of Safety."
"Of course!" burst from Klimkov. But the next instant he compressed his lips tightly, and glanced sidewise at the black-bearded man. He resolved to go away. But just then the car came along, and as the two men prepared to board it, he thought:
"I must get on, too, or else they'll guess I'm a spy. What would they think of a man who waited for a car with them, and then didn't take it?"
The passengers in the car seemed calmer to Yevsey than the pedestrians on the street.
"After all it's some sort of concealment, though only behind glass," was his explanation of the difference, as he listened to the animated conversation in the car.