SCENES ON THE ROAD. 143 



the rest of mankind, as buzzards scent from astonish- 

 ing distances a carcass, turned out to be a reasonable 

 sort of a chap after all. After considerable bargaining 

 and casual references to the smallness of an uriadnik's 

 salary, he finally accepted the trifling sum of three 

 rubles, in consideration of which he would close his 

 eyes to the fact that Sascha had no passport at all and 

 mine was " irregular." The least we could do to show 

 our appreciation of this extremely moderate demand 

 was to take him into the traktir and set up a friendly 

 samovar of tea. 



