Why is he shaking, and bending, and diving into his pockets like a man who has lost something valuable?
"Your papers!" demands the interpreter in German.
"My papers!" replies the baron, "I am looking for them.

I have not got them; they were in my letter case." And he dived again into his trousers pockets, his waistcoat pockets, his coat pockets, his great-coat pockets--there were twenty of them at the least--and he found nothing.
"Be quick--be quick!" said the interpreter.

"The train cannot wait!" "I object to its going without me!" exclaimed the baron.

"These papers--how have they gone astray?
I must have let them drop out of my case.

They should have given them back to me--" At this moment the gong awoke the echoes of the interior of the railway station.
"Wait! wait! Donner vetter! Can't you wait a few moments for a man who is going round the world in thirty-nine days--" "The Grand Transasiatic does not wait," says the interpreter.
Without waiting for any more, Major Noltitz and I reach the platform, while the baron continues to struggle in the presence of the impassible Chinese functionaries.
I examine the train and see that its composition has been modified on account of there being fewer travelers between Kachgar and Pekin.
Instead of twelve carriages, there are now only ten, placed in the following order: engine, tender, front van, two first-class cars, dining car, two second-class cars, the van with the defunct mandarin, rear van.
The Russian locomotives, which have brought us from Uzun-Ada, have been replaced by a Chinese locomotive, burning not naphtha but coal, of which there are large deposits in Turkestan, and stores at the chief stations along the line.
My first care is to look in at the front van.