Other difficulties awaited us.  There was but one troika to spare and only one telyaga.  We required two vehicles for ourselves and baggage, but the smotretal could not accommodate us.  We ordered the samovar, and debated over our tea.  I urged my friend to try the effect of my special passport, which had always been successful in Paul’s hands.  He did so after our tea-drinking, but the document was powerless, the smotretal doubtless arguing that if the paper were of consequence we should have shown it on our arrival.  We sent it to the starost, or head man of the village, but that worthy declined to honor it, and we were left to shift for ourselves.  Evidently the power of the Governor General’s passport was on the wane.

The document was a request, not an order, and therefore had no real force.  Paul always displayed it as if it were an Imperial ukase.  His manner of spreading the double page and exhibiting seal and signature carried authority and produced horses.  The amiable naturalist had none of the quality called ‘cheek,’ and the adoption of an authoritative air did not accord with his character.  He subsequently presented the passport as if he thought it all-powerful, and on such occasions it generally proved so.  A man who wishes to pass a doorkeeper at a caucus, enter a ladies’ car on a railway, or obtain a reserved seat in a court room, is much more certain of success if he advances with a confident air than if he hesitates and appears fearful of ejection.  Humanity is the same the world over, and there is more than a shadow of truth in the saying that society values a man pretty much as he appears to value himself.  I can testify that the smotretals in Siberia generally regarded our papers according to our manner of showing them.

We took tea a second time, parlayed with the yemshicks and their friends, and closed by chartering a team at double the regular rates.  Just before reaching the snow we passed the sleighs, and halted for them to come up.  My sleigh was very soon ready, and we rejoiced at our transfer of baggage.  During the change a bottle of cognac disappeared mysteriously, and I presume we shall never see it again.  The other and more cumbersome articles preserved their numbers faithfully.  Our party halting in the moonlight and busy about the vehicles, presented a curiously picturesque appearance.  Schmidt was in his Arctic costume, while I wore my winter dress, minus the dehar.  The yemshicks were wrapped in their inevitable sheepskins, and bustled about with unwavering good humor.

In the sleigh we were at home, and had a roof to cover us; we made very good speed to the station, where we found no horses.  The floor of the travelers’ room was covered with dormant figures, and after bumping my head over the doorway, I waded in a pond of bodies, heads, and legs.  The moon was the only light, and its beams were not sufficient to prevent my stepping on several sleepers, and extracting Russian oaths for my carelessness.