produce of a robbery committed on his
premises; and were now brought to him,
not to be restored, but to be identified, in
order that justice might inform itself, and
perquisitions be made respecting the theft.
Now, the seller of notions happened to be
entirely out of sugar in loaves, had broken
up his last a fortnight before, was rapidly
exhausting his stock of lump sugar, and was
anxiously expecting a fresh consignment.
He therefore energetically protested that the
robbery could not have taken place in his
house; because, imprimis he had securely
fastened doors and windows, and kept a fierce
watchdog; secondly, because he had no sugar-
loaves to be robbed of. The men in grey
smiled grimly, and showed the astonished
grocer his own private trade-mark on both
the loaves. He could not even surmise them
to be forged; they were evidently his. The
men in grey therefore proceeded to commence
their perquisitions, which they effected by
ransacking the house and shop from garret to
basement — spoiling every article of
merchandise they could conveniently spoil—
avowedly for the purpose of seeking traces
of the burglarious entrance of the thieves.
Ultimately they left a man in possession, to
watch, in case the robbers renewed their
nefarious attempt. This assistant Boguey
turned out to be a grey-coated skeleton in
every closet in the house. He smoked the
vilest Mahorka; he drank vodki like a
vampire; his taking snuff was as the
sound of a trumpet; he demanded victuals
like a roaring lion; he devoured them like
a ghoule; he awoke the family in the
dead of night with false alarms of fire
and thieves; he drove M. Mélasse to frenzy,
Madame M. to passionate indignation;
Mademoiselle M. to tears and hysterics; the
younger M's. nearly into fits of terror; and
he stayed a fortnight. The thieves
didn't come, and he didn't go. In the meantime
the wretched grocer lived the life of
a hunted cur. The police put the sugar-
loaves (metaphorically) into a tin kettle, and
attaching them to his dorsal vertebrae, hunted
him perpetually. The same process of
summoning, resummoning, interrogating, and
cross-interrogating, which I have already
described in my own (supposititious) case, was
gone through with him. The police found
out that he was in the habit of going daily
on 'change (for the good man speculated a
little in Volga Steamboat and Russ-American
Ironwork shares). Of course he had to attend
the police office daily, for a week exactly at
'change time, and was released by his
tormentors exactly as the Exchange gates closed.
The police captured two poor devils of
moujiks, who, setting aside the fact that they
had been previously convicted of robbery,
were as honest men as the Governor of
Moscow, and had no more to do with the robbery
(which had never been committed) than I
had. These unfortunate rogues they kept
chained for some time, and living on bread
and water in an infamous den at the Police
Siège, averring that there was the strongest
presumption of their guilt. They suddenly
discovered that they were as free from blame as
the driven snow; setting them at liberty, they
sent in a peremptory demand to M. Mélasse
for a corpulent sum of roubles, to defray
the expenses of their board and lodging
during their imprisonment, and to compensate
them for the injury they had suffered. He
at first refused to pay, but ultimately
disbursed the sum demanded, in despair.
He was beginning to entertain the notion
of a plunge, for good and all, into the
Moskva river, when he received a
communication from the mayor of police,
informing him in the most polite terms that
it had been considered expedient to refer his
case, which was considered to be a very
intricate one, to the Ouprava Blagotschinia,
or Bureau de Bon Ordre, presided over by the
Grand Master of Police in St. Petersburg,
and begging him to take the necessary steps
to present a petition to the Governor-General
of Moscow, in order that he might procure a
passport, and proceed to head police quarters
at St. Petersburg, there to be interrogated
concerning the most remarkable robbery that
had for a long time baffled the sagacity of
justice: —the more remarkable, I may myself
remark, for its never having taken place.
Mélasse, the unhappy, rushed on the wings
of the wind, and the polished runners of a
sledge (it was in winter) to the police-office.
He thrust five roubles into the first grey-
coat's hand he met, and promised him ten, if
he would procure him immediate speech with
the Mayor of Police. Ushered into the
presence of that functionary he conjured him,
without halting for breath, to tell him how
much, in the name of Heaven, he would take
to release him from this intolerable persecution.
The polizei-mayor laughed, poked him
in the ribs, and offered him to snuff.

"I am glad to see you returning to better
sentiments, my dear M. Mélasse," he said
quite cordially. "What is the good of fighting
against us? Why omit doing what must be
done? You are in Russia, you must be
content to have things managed à la Russe.
When you live with wolves you must needs
howl, M. Melasse."

"How much?" the victim palpitated.

"There, there, brat (brother)," continued
the warm-hearted police-mayor. "You shall
be absolved easily. I think if you were to
place a hundred and fifty silver roubles in that
blotting-book, I should know how to relieve
many destitute families. We see so MUCH
misery, my dear friend," he added with a sigh.

M. Mélasse set his teeth very closely
together; drew the hundred and fifty silver
roubles in paper-money from his pocket-book,
shut his eyes that he might not see his
substance departing from him, and crammed the
money into the blotting-book.