when the englishman was brought to the embassy, they immediately summoned to him a medical man and an apothecary. the medical man ordered him to be placed in a warm bath, while the apothecary instantly rolled a gutta-percha pill, and thrust it into his mouth, and then they took hold of him, and laid him on a feather-bed and covered him with a fur coat, and left him to sweat; and that no one might disturb him, orders were issued throughout the whole embassy that no one should dare[pg 87] so much as to sneeze. the medical man and the apothecary waited until the half-skipper had fallen asleep, and then they prepared another gutta-percha pill for him, laid it on a small table by the head of his bed, and went away.

but the left-handed man was tumbled down on the floor of the police station, and asked: "who are you, and whence come you, and have you a passport or any other tugament?"

but he, from illness, drinking, and the long pitching on the ship, had grown so weak that he answered not a word, but only groaned.

then they immediately searched him, took his motley garment off of him, and seized his money and his repeater-watch, and the inspector ordered that he be taken, gratis, to the hospital, by the first cabman who happened along.[40]

[pg 88]

a policeman led the left-handed man out to place him in a sledge, but for a long time he could not catch one, because cabmen shun the police. and all this time the left-handed man lay on the cold pavement; then the policeman caught a sledge, only without a warm laprobe, because on such occasions cabmen hide their laprobes in the sledges under them, in order that the policeman's feet may get chilled the more quickly. so they carried the left-handed man uncovered, and when they began to shift him from one sledge to another they kept dropping him, and when they picked him up they tweaked his ears to bring him to his senses. they carried him to one hospital, but there they would not take him in because he had no tugament. they carried him to [pg 89]another, and there, also, they would not receive him, and so, also, at a third, and a fourth; they dragged him about until morning dawned, through all the most tangled and distant ways, and kept shifting him incessantly, so that they completely wore him out. then one assistant medical man told the policeman to take him to the obukhoff hospital for common people, where they receive all people of unknown rank to die.

there they ordered a receipt to be given, and the left-handed man to be set upon the floor in the corridor until he should be examined.

but at the same hour on the following day, the english half-skipper rose, swallowed the second gutta-percha pill, ate a light breakfast of chicken and rice, drank airfixe, and said: "where is my russian comrade? i will go and seek him."

he dressed himself and sallied forth.