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Show " - 8 ' She was admitted into the room. It was quite large, with a ckiset. In the mhhlloof the rontu'was a large table, on which were writing materials aud oLllcidl documents. SnbulY was in. lie received her with a hideous grin. His visitor was pale and her eyes indicated thai she had been weeping. 'What is the cause of your grief, beauteous beau-teous lady?' ".My husband Is In prison. Do you know the cause of his arrests" 'It is a very serious matter, as he has been conspiring against the czar. I am sorry, but 1 have my duty to perform." 'Van anything be done to liberate) my husband!-" j "I'll take the matter mder advisement, i not that T havo Any doubts about your j husband's guilt, hip as a matter of (K j commodatioii io nii. 1 am very butty I now, but phase call to-morrow afternoon at a o'clock, aud i'll see what can be . done. " i The grimaces and leers with which thosa , woni u.-iv accompanied left no doubt in I the mind of hh: visitor as to his real iu- teniioiis. hut she managed to conceal her i disgust and promised to call at tho ap-! ap-! pointed hour.. As for Subiiff, he was in , an ecstatic frame of mind. The manifest i absurdity of a man wilh his cast of conn j tenaitce creating a favorable impression, i on anybody, excepting perhaps himself, j never occurred to him. An hour before tho appointed time Suboff was arranging bis toilet before the glass. He fcslooncd his dome of thought with a wisp of about eleven lonesome luiirs that Mill lingered around the base of his hald head. To himself bo appeared to be excruciating lovely. A carriage Mopped lief ore the door, lie pranced to the window and gazed out, looking, as Mrs. Sabinsky altcrwiird told n friend, for all Hie world like an iinnieu e turkey gobbler. gob-bler. Ho opened the door and gallantly kissed her diminutive hand, "We are quite nioiio," he miid. ".MippoM somebody were ui cniuef My repntmion would be ruined!" exclaimed the tair visilor, "There is not the slightest danger; and If there was hero is a closet in which you could hide," "Why, that closet is not big enough. How could I pet in there with my dressr" "It is much larger than you suppose, I am quite large, and it can accommodate me." "I don't believe It," replied tho visitor incrediilmi'ilv. FOILED. j i The scene of our story Is ln Russia "Holy Kussia," as the Russians call it. In 1 the laud of the czar the police otllclals are j allowed considerable latitude. They take j copious advantage of their opportunities to make It unpleasant for their personal enemies. The man or woman against I whom the police have a spite is not safe in person or property. The usual mode ', or conciliating those in authority is to iu- j vile them to take sun ft out of a snuffbox, : the contents of which are gold rubles. To avoid trouble with the police a man in Russia must be reckless with his rubles. Police Commissioner Subnff was very, very obliging iu some respects, lie was a hopeless victim of the snnff habit when the snuff lox had a gold liutng. He was tip to snuff in several senses of the word. To use an American expression, Suhoff was an Investigating committee of one, To relieve her fears Suboff went Into the closet and partially closed the door. The next moment the dour was pushed to and locked from the outside. Suboff was very much crowded In that closet, almost ns much, perhaps, na if he lived iu a Harlem tint, llejthoughthls visitor vis-itor was playing a practical joke ou him and that ho would bo released in a few minutes, but this delusion was dispelled ! by a tlrm female voice whispering through I the keyhole: "Don't you try to get out, you old scoundrel, Or I'll ntah you to tho heart." I There was something in the tone of the , voice that convinced him the speaker ; meant business. Col. Sabinsky's wife tripped to the table, j and ou one of the ofllcial blanks, already ! signed by the wretched Suboff, she wrote: "Release immediately Col. Sabinsky." SnbolE heard a silvery voice say: "Farewell, my dear Suboff, but don't excite yourself. If anybody culls remem-I remem-I ber that you are not in. You have check enough to carry you through any thin ex- cept this door. Please shut this door : after you. Ta ta." I When Suboff realized the peril of fata situation he made frantic efforts to burnt ; open the door, but it resisted all his ef-, ef-, forts, although he swore liko a man who : was trying to write wilh a stylographlo : pen. He made almost as much noise as n woman's rights convention and with I just about the same result. He was generally gen-erally very successful in attracting attention, atten-tion, but on this occasion he failed fgno-miniously. fgno-miniously. Ho was almost speechless when ho was released, and he had (alien off like a ton of coal on the scales of s dealer. He got out, but the story also got out, and he was the subject of inextinguishable .ridicule wherever he went, lloura before Suboff got out of Lhat closet Col. Sabfn-. Sabfn-. aky and Ilia wife einaaed the frontier, i They reached Paris In safety, and there it j was that the latter told the story to th I writer, who was a member of the German I legation. Translated from the German j by Alex. M. Sweet for The New York Mercury, I - - - - that had to bo continually lubricated, lie had, however, one other wenkness. Ho was very much given to paying his addresses ad-dresses to the fair sex. Ho was not pretty to look at. He was a short, fat, bald headed man. Scientists say that In a thousand years we will all bo bald. StibofT had merely anticipated the scientists scien-tists by a thousand years. Ho was bald already, although lit was unmarried. Nobody No-body could accuse him of failing to remove re-move the hairs out of the comb. His blood might curdle in his veins, but his hair never stood on end with terror. As an additional attraction his complexion com-plexion was very much the color of an Italian sunset, or a circus poster. His mouth was tho shape of a semi-circular gash, and looked as if it might he partial to pio. His curs were large and generous, and gave him tho appearance, at a distance, of being provided with wings. His face betrayed about as much intellectuality as an Irish potato. It was : only wheu ho leered that it seemed to . have any expression at all iu it. i Ono would have supposed that such a 1 caricature of a man would have confined I his attentions lo females who wero, com-i com-i paralivply speaking, as devoid of personal i attractiveness as himself, 6iich, for lu-I lu-I stance, as those who were adorned with a i hump and ono eye. That, however, was not the modest sort of mnn that SuboH I was. He forced bis attentions ou tho ! loveliest in the land. If they opposed his ; wishes he jjmptly trumped up a con-' con-' Bplrncy against the government and sent them, or their relatives, to Siberia. If a handsome woman desired to have any of her relatives sent to Siberia all that she had to do was to refuse to admire Suboff. StibofT was in Warsaw investigating a i conspiracy. A number of prominent : Poles were arrested and sent to Siberia, : and Subnff was hunting for more conspir-I conspir-I ntors. He was kept pretiy busy, hut he ! would have paid much more attention to his ofllcial duties if it had not been for tho I beautiful eves of the wife of a certain Col. Sabinsky. Mrs. Sabinsky was infVcd a beautiful woman. She was tall, well formed, with wonderful black eyes and a wealth of hair to match. Her features Were as faultless ns those of a Grecian statue. Police Commissioner Suboff had seen her at a ball, and immediately fell violently vio-lently in love with her, as far as the term was applicable to such a creature as himself. him-self. He paid every possible attention, but the handsome Po'e ignored him completely. com-pletely. When he endeavored to becor u more familiar she said something to u. group of ladies that caused them to sn'!s audibly. She was evidently making i l of him. He felt pretty sure that she said something about his personal appearance, and that was a subject on which he was very sensitive. He rushed out of the ballroom foaming with rage. The more ho brooded over the affair the worse he felt about it. He determined to be revenged. He would find means to tame the pride of tho haughty beauty. Next day Col. Sabinsky was arrested for conspiring against tho czar. This meant that, perhaps without even the formality of a trial, he would be transported to Siberia. Col. Sabinsky's wife was at first very much alarmed for the safety of her husband. hus-band. She felt pretty sure that her unwillingness un-willingness to smile on Suboff was the real cause of her husband's arrest. She w;if a very smart woman ns tdjv p ns a steel trap. She said to herself 'As Mr. Suboff has begun to play tricks o1 nte, I'll see If I can't play tricks on him. I'll s5 if I can'tbeat him at his own game." She managed to have a note conveyed to her imprisoned husband, telling him to keep up his courage, as she nr0uld find means to procure his liberation. In the meantime Suboff remained In his office invading the result of his first move to compel Mrs. Sabinsky to come to terms. He did not have long to wait, for on the day following the arrest of her husband Mrs. Sabinsky called at the uilice of the petty tyrant. |