While I looked on in wonder, the Manager of the Sleeping-Car Company
joined me.
"I must thank you, sir," he said, "for making known to me the outrage
committed by one of our porters on the Princess. She is travelling
incognito, and I did not know she was on the train until she told me
last night who she was. We get the best men we can, but we are
constantly having trouble of that kind with our porters. The trick is to
give every passenger a whole compartment, and then keep packing them
together unless they pay something handsome to be let alone. I shall
make an example of that fellow. He is a new one and didn't know me"--and
he laughed.
"Do they call her the _Princess_?" I asked. They were certainly
receiving her like one, I thought.
"Why, certainly, I thought you knew her," and he looked at me curiously,
"the Princess Dolgorouki Sliniski. Her husband, the Prince, is attached
to the Emperor's household. She is travelling with her two boys and
their German tutor. The old gentleman with the white mustache now
talking to her is the Russian Ambassador.
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