The Emperor gazed calmly on the Mortimer gun, because he has such in Tzarskoe Selo,[10] and then they gave him the pistol, and said: "This pistol is of unknown, inimitable workmanship—our Admiral plucked it from the belt of a bandit chief in Candelabria."
The Emperor looked at the pistol, and could not tear his eyes from it. He gave vent to terrible "ahs!"
"Ah, ah, ah!" says he, "what a weapon is this!... how is it possible to work so delicately?" And he turns to Platoff and says in Russian: "There now, if I had but one such artisan in Russia, I should be extremely happy and proud, and I would instantly make that man a noble."
But the very minute Platoff hears these words, he thrusts his hands into his voluminous trousers and draws thence a gunsmith's screw-driver.
"This does not unscrew," say the Englishmen. But he, paying no heed, picks away at the lock. He gives it one turn, he gives it another,—and takes out the lock. Platoff shows the catch to the Emperor, and there, on the curve, stands a Russian inscription: "Ivan Moskvin in the town of Tula."
The Englishmen marvelled, and nudged one another: "Oh, alas! we have blundered!"
But the Emperor says sadly to Platoff: "Why hast thou covered them with such confusion? Now I am very sorry for them. Let us go."
They took their places again in the same two-seated carriage, and drove away; and that day the Emperor went to a ball, but Platoff gulped down a still mightier bumper of kizil vodka, and slept a mighty Cossack sleep.
He rejoiced that he had put the Englishmen to confusion, and had placed the Tula artisan in the proper light, but he was also vexed. Why had the Emperor felt pity for the Englishmen on such an occasion?
"For what reason did the Emperor grieve?" thought Platoff. "I don't understand it at all;" and, engaged in this meditation, he twice arose, crossed himself, and drank vodka until, by sheer force, he brought upon himself a profound sleep.