You will forgive, won't you, Excellency? I have apologized--I most
humbly apologize."
And he took up the letter I had given him, holding it gingerly with
trembling fingers. And well he might, for the document was headed:
"MINISTER OF THE IMPERIAL HOUSEHOLD, PALACE OF PETERHOF.
"The bearer of this is one Gordon Francis Gregg, British subject, whom
it is Our will and command that he shall be Our guest during his journey
through our dominion. And we hereby command all Governors of Provinces
and minor officials to afford him all the facilities he requires and
privileges and immunities as Our guest."
The above decree was in a neat copper-plate handwriting in Russian,
while beneath was the sprawling signature of the ruler of one hundred
and thirty millions of people, that signature that was all-powerful from
the gulf of Bothnia to the Pacific--"Nicholas."
The document was the one furnished to me a year before when, at the
invitation of the Russian Government, I had gone on a mission of inquiry
into the state of the prisons in order to see, on behalf of the British
public, whether things were as black as some writers had painted them.
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