When they had left, he turned to Charlie.
"You guess who I am, I suppose ?" "I guess now, your majesty," Charlie said respectfully, "but until now the idea that my kind friend was the czar himself never entered my mind.

I understood, from Doctor Kelly, that you were a surgeon." "I don't think he said so," the czar replied.

"He simply said that I could perform an amputation as well as he could, which was not quite true.

But I studied surgery for a time in Holland, and performed several operations under the eyes of the surgeons there.
"I saw that you did not recognize my name.

It is known to every Russian, but doubtless you never heard of me save as Peter the Czar.