chain, pen-knife, pencil-case, the little bone instrument with which I manicured my finger nails. The others snatched up each of the articles as he put it down. I saw that the red-headed man had taken off his filthy coat and was trying on my jacket. I did remonstrate then.
"It is no use, I suppose," I said to the English-speaking person, "to point out that you are treating me in a way for which you have no excuse; at least, you have in your hands proof of the truth of what I said; and, anyhow, I shall be obliged if you would ask your friend behind you not to put himself into my jacket."
I believe that until I called his attention to the fact he did not notice what the other was doing; then, glancing round, he said something to him in his guttural lingo. The fellow answered. What he said I had no notion; it was clearly something which those who understood found amusing. The little fellow by me shrieked with laughter, as if in the enjoyment of some tremendous joke. The fat, fair fellow pressed his hands to his sides as if he feared he might be tickled to the bursting-point. The red-haired man stood as straight as his twisted body permitted, stretching out his arms, as if asking the others to observe the fit of my jacket on his crooked form. As they all shouted and laughed he put his hand on the English-speaking person's shoulder and said something to him in a peremptory insistent tone, as if he were issuing an order. When the other seemed reluctant to do as he was told to do, they pressed round him, repeating, so I took it, in a sort of chorus, what the red-haired man had said. As if he found them difficult to resist, he said something to the giant. In an instant the monster, putting his arms about my neck, began to unbutton my braces. It was useless for me to resist; his strength was so much more than mine that I was helpless. To render me more helpless still the others gave him their assistance. They tore my trousers off, my boots, my shirt they stripped me to the skin, hooting with laughter all the while.
The red-haired man, who had been disrobing while they stripped me, put on my garments as they tore them off. Presently he was arrayed from head to foot in my clothes: I am bound to say he presented a much more pleasant appearance than in his own. They fitted him better than might have been expected. I was about his height, and slim they might almost have been made for him. He was enraptured, gesticulating, exclaiming, capering. I was afraid that they would suggest that I should don his filthy rags in place of my own. I should not have been able to resist if they had. But all at once the little fellow gave a sort of screech, pointing to the couch. What he was after I could not guess but they knew. The fat man caught up what seemed to be the heap which I had noticed.
It resolved itself into garments. An old fur coat of a fashion which I had never seen before: baggy breeches, enormous boots, a tall, round, brimless something, covered with some mangy black skin, which I took to be a hat. Left on the couch, when the garments had been removed, was a large piece of coarse brown paper, on which were half a dozen labels, which I took to be the wrapper in which the garments had come to the house.
The fat man held up the garments one after the other, displaying them to the best advantage; they shouted at the sight of each. When they had seen them all they yelled in chorus. The red-faced man said to me:
"You cannot go about naked; as a respectable clerk it is impossible. Here are two suits you can have your choice. Will you have the one which our friend is willing to offer you in exchange for your own, or will you have the other? This is the uniform of a drosky driver of St. Petersburg. The drosky is the Russian cab; the drosky driver is a splendid fellow; he is perhaps a little given to drink, but still a splendid fellow. This uniform, which has come to us this morning God knows from whom or why it has been sent is not so gay as some of them, and is perhaps a little worn. Now, quick; which do you choose this or the other?"
He professed to give me my choice, but I did not have it really. The huge man, assisted by his friends, put me in that drosky driver's uniform. There were no braces for the breeches; they fastened them on to me with a strap, drawing it so tight that I could scarcely breathe. The top boots came above my knees; they were so large that I could have kicked them off. In the coat, made, I fancy, of some sort of pony skin, there was room enough for another as well as for me. The coarse hair with which it was covered had come off it in a dozen places; it must have been very many years old. An unpleasant odour from it assailed my nostrils. As if to crown the insults which they were piling on me, they placed upon my head the tall, black, brimless thing which I had rightly supposed to be a hat. Like the other things it was much too large for me. The monster corrected that defect by clapping it with his huge palm upon the top with such force that he drove it down right over my eyes. I raised my hands to free myself I could see nothing. While I was still struggling my head had got fixed in the thing I heard the door open and the sound of a woman's voice.
CHAPTER II
IMPRISONED
When I had got my head sufficiently out of the ridiculous, heavy structure they had given me to serve as a hat the room was in confusion; I mean in even greater confusion than it had been. The six men were grouped about a girl, their eyes fixed on her. I felt that she regarded them as if they were so much dirt. She was a dainty example of her sex short, slender, well set up, carrying her head in a fashion which suggested that she looked upon the world with scorn. She was quite young; I doubt if she was more than twenty. She had an abundance of fair hair, which she wore gathered in a knot and parted on one side. Her attire was simple and in exquisite taste, and, I had a notion, cost money. She looked as if she had just stepped out of a drawing-room, wearing neither hat nor jacket. That there was a decent apartment, suitable for a lady's use, in that house, I could not imagine. In her elegant simplicity she looked singularly out of place in that company, in that unclean room. I had a notion that she might be thinking the same of me. Her big oval eyes were fixed upon my form as if she were wondering what I was doing there. She was addressing the others in the dissonant, guttural tongue, in which she seemed to be as much at home as they were somehow, coming from her lips, it sounded a little more musical. Obviously she was asking questions about who I was and how I came to be there. When she had obtained their answers she seemed suddenly to become possessed with excitement, which she seemed to impart to them. They glared at me in the unpromising fashion they had done at first. Certainly something like murder was in their eyes. Surely this slip of a girl could not be inciting them to commit further acts of violence. I appealed to her, taking advantage of a pause in her speech.
"You speak English?" She answered neither yes nor no; but just stood with her head thrown back and looked at me. I felt sure she understood that she did speak English. "I appeal to you," I went on, "for protection. I have done nothing to incur the resentment of your" I hesitated, changing from one form of words to another "of these gentlemen. I merely knocked at the door to return something which had fallen on to my head from a window above. The instant I knocked they assailed me, dragged me in here, subjected me to all sorts of indignities, and now they have deprived me of my clothing and forced me to wear these disgusting things. I beg you to explain to them that I am an innocent and peaceable stranger, and that I desire to quarrel with no one. All I want them to do is to give me back my own clothes and let me go."
"All you want them to do is to give you back your own clothes and let you go."
The echo came from the red-faced man, who, leaning upon the table, kept his eyes fixed on my face. There was an ominous something about everything he said. Perhaps it was my imagination to me his simplest words seemed to convey a threat. I hated the man! English though he might be, I feared and disliked him more than any of the others. What seemed to be his sneering echo of my remark, whether she understood it or not, seemed to have upon the girl anything but a pacific effect. She said something in short, quick tones which seemed to move the men to anger. They moved towards me with in their hands the weapons which had appeared before. The short man had a knife whose blade, I should think, was sixteen or eighteen inches long an evil-looking thing. He raised it as if to strike at me. I thought he would strike.
