It's true it all happened in the days before our present, more recent regulations.

It is true, too, that according to his own account they had offered to follow the more regular procedure, but he "got the better of them" and refused....

Of course not long ago a governor might, in extreme cases....

But how could this be an extreme case?
That's what baffled me.
"No doubt they had a telegram from Petersburg," Stepan Trofimovitch said suddenly.
"A telegram?
About you?
Because of the works of Herzen and your poem?
Have you taken leave of your senses?
What is there in that to arrest you for ?" I was positively angry.

He made a grimace and was evidently mortified--not at my exclamation, but at the idea that there was no ground for arrest.
"Who can tell in our day what he may not be arrested for ?" he muttered enigmatically.
A wild and nonsensical idea crossed my mind.
"Stepan Trofimovitch, tell me as a friend," I cried, "as a real friend, I will not betray you: do you belong to some secret society or not ?" And on this, to my amazement, he was not quite certain whether he was or was not a member of some secret society.
"That depends, _voyez-vous._" "How do you mean 'it depends' ?" "When with one's whole heart one is an adherent of progress and...