It's all right when they're looking for nihilists and violent revolutionaries--the sort of people who would think it a great thing to assassinate either the Kaiser or the Czar.
But the trouble is that if a big man in either Germany or Russia has a grudge against someone, he can use that whole secret police machinery against him.

That's what Mikail Suvaroff was doing to you." "But the Germans ?" "He would have seen to it, I suppose, that the secret police on our side told the Germans here some cock and bull story--enough to induce them to make it unpleasant for you.

That was arranged in advance probably.

Right there on the border, with war starting, those fellows lost their importance.

The soldiers, like Ernst, were in full command.