A SEARCHING CROSS-EXAMINATION. 207 



The officer, of course, shook his head in disapproval. 



" You have no right to enter a man's house," he pur- 

 sued, " without his permission, even if you harm noth- 

 ing in it. 



In the name of Uncle Sam, I thereupon invited him 

 to America, where, if he pleased, he might photograph 

 the entire country and write anything he chose without 

 troubling himself to inquire whether anybody liked it 

 or not. And I pointed out that, from his standard, a 

 man who proposed to do anything in Russia would have 

 to get leave from the Czar, then from the Governors, 

 then from the starostas of the villages, and from the 

 owners of the houses ; and in order to photograph a 

 moujik's cottage, one would have to reckon with the 

 Czar, Governor, starosta, and moujik. How could a 

 moujik's wretched hovel belong to four different 

 people ? 



This latter proposition, however, Sascha declined to 

 interpret, on the grounds that we might get three or 

 four days in jail for " making an insolent reply." 



At nine o'clock on Monday morning we called on 

 the Governor. At the door of his mansion we came in 

 contact with an interesting individual popularly known 

 as the " Little Governor." Russians with a sense of 

 humor sometimes refer to the doorkeeper of a Gov- 

 ernor's mansion as the " Big Little Governor, " since 

 this personage is in one way of even more importance 

 than his master. 



The secret of the Little Governor's power and im- 

 portance lies in the fact that anybody who wishes to 

 see the Big Governor had best first " see " him. In fact, 

 since the Little Governor is invariably an Orthodox, 



