This particular man, when I pretended to draw my “open sesame” spell from my pocket, instantly dropped his official air, asked me to write my name, with quite a human, friendly manner, and then remarked, with a very every-day laugh, “That is sufficient.  I have seen so much of it on your previous petitions that I can swear to it myself much better than the police captain could.”

As an offset to my anecdotes about our being lost through inability to riddle out our name on the part of the police, I must relate an instance where the post-office displayed remarkable powers of divination.  One day I received an official notification from the post-office that there was a misdirected parcel for me from Moscow, lying in the proper office,—­ would I please to call for it?  I called.  The address on the parcel was “Madame Argot,” I was informed, but I must get myself certified to before I could receive it.

“But how am I to do that?  I am not Madame Argot.  Are you sure the parcel is for me?”

“Perfectly.  It’s your affair to get the certificate.”

I went to the police station, one which I had not visited before, and stated the case.

“Go home and send the dvornik, as is proper,” replied the captain loftily.

I argued the matter, after my usual fashion, and at last he affixed his signature to my document, with the encouraging remark:  “Well, even with this you won’t get that parcel, because the name is not yours.”

“Trust me for that,” I retorted.  “As they are clever enough to know that it is for me, they will be clever enough to give it to me, or I will persuade them that they are.”

Back I went to the post-office.  I had never been in that department previously, I may mention.  Then I was shown a box, and asked if I expected it, and from whom it came.  I asserted utter ignorance; but, as I took it in my hand, I heard a rattling, and it suddenly flashed across my mind that it might be the proofs of some photographs which the Moscow artist had “hurried” through in one month.  The amiable post-office “blindman,” who had riddled out the address, was quite willing to give me the parcel without further ado, but I said:—­

“Open it, and you will soon see whether it really belongs to me.”

After much protestation he did so, and then we exchanged lavish compliments,—­he on the capital likenesses and the skill of the artist; I on the stupidity of the man who could evolve Argot out of my legibly engraved visiting-card, and on the cleverness of the man who could translate that name back into its original form.

The most prominent instance of minute thoughtfulness and care on the part of the post-office officials which came under my notice occurred in the depths of the country.  I sent a letter with a ten-kopek stamp on it to the post town, twelve versts distant.  Foreign postage had been raised from seven to ten kopeks, and stamps, in a new design, of the latter denomination (hitherto non-existent) had been in use for about four months.  The country postmaster, who had seen nothing but the old issues, carefully removed my stamp and sent it back to me, replacing it with a seven-kopek stamp and a three-kopek stamp.  I felt, for a moment, as though I had been both highly complimented and gently rebuked for my remarkable skill in counterfeiting!