The old tutor, finding himself alone with Mr. Pike, was not permitted to relapse into embarrassment.

“In the first place, I want you to know who and what I am,” said Mr. Pike.  “Come into my suite and I’ll show you something.  Then you’ll see that you’re not wasting your time on a light-weight.”

He led the way to a large parlor ornately done in red, and pulled out from a leather trunk a passport issued by the Department of State of the United States of America.  It was a huge parchment, with pictorial embellishments, heavy Gothic type and a seal about the size of a pie.  Mr. Pike’s physical peculiarities were enumerated and there was a direct request that the bearer be shown every courtesy and attention due a citizen of the great republic.  Popova looked it over and was impressed.

“It isn’t everybody that gets those,” said Mr. Pike, as he put the document carefully back into the trunk and covered it with shirts.  “Have a red chair.  Take off your hat—­ah, I remember, you leave that on, don’t you?”

The old gentleman seated himself, somewhat reassured by the cheery manner of his host, who sat in front of him and beamed.

Mr. Pike, supposed to be given to vapory and aimless conversation, really was a general.  Already we have learned that he based his every-day conduct on a groundwork of safe principles.  He had certain private theories, which had stood the test, and when following these theories he proceeded with bustling confidence.  One of his theories was that every man in the world has a grievance and regards himself as much-abused, and in order to win the regard and confidence of that man, all one has to do is feel around for the grievance and then play upon it.  Mr. Pike, in his province of employer, had been compelled to study the methods of successful labor-union agitators.

“You don’t know much about me, but I know plenty about you,” he began, closing one eye and nodding wisely.  “I hadn’t been here very long before I found out who was the real brains of that outfit up at the palace.”

“Really, you know, we are not supposed to discuss the merits of our ruler,” said Popova, fairly startled at the candid tone of the other.  He lifted one hand in timid deprecation.

“Of course you’re not.  That’s why some one who is simply a figurehead goes on taking all the credit for tricks turned by a smart fellow who is working for him.  Now, if you lived in the dear old land of ready money, where the accident of birth doesn’t give any man the right to sit on somebody else’s neck, you’d be a big gun.  You’d have money and a pull and probably, before you got through, you’d be investigated.  Over here, you are deliberately kept in the background.  You are the Patsy.”

“The what?”

“The squidge—­that means the fellow who does all the worrying and gets nothing out of it.  Now, before you return to what you call the palace, and which looks to me like the main building of the Allegheny Brick Works, will you do me the honor of going into that cave of gloom, known as the American bar, and hitting up just one small libation?”