at it. When you've once shown 'em how to do
a thing, they'll do it every bit as well as yourself; but they take a
powerful deal o' showin', they do. You see, a Rooshan has his own way of
doin' everything, and tryin' to teach him any other way is as bad as
eating soup with a one-pronged fork. And then to see how thick some on
'em are! Why, they may well be brave in battle, for it 'ud take a
precious clever bullet to git through one of _their_ 'eads, it would.
Here's one sample for yer: A friend o' mine in Mosker had got a Rooshan
servant--one o' them reg'lar _Derevenskis_ ("villagers"), and so one day
he sends him to the shop with two o' them twenty-kopeck pieces,[30]
tellin' him to buy bread with one and butter with t'other. Off goes the
chap, and never comes back ag'in; so at last his master goes to see
what's up; and there he finds Mr. Ivan at the door of the shop, holdin'
out the money in one hand and scratchin' his head with t'other, as if
he'd forgot his own name, and couldn't find hisself nowhow. "Oh,
_barin_" ("master"), says he in a voice like a fit o' chollerer,
"whatever am I to do now? I've been and _mixed_ the two pieces, and now
I don't know which was the one for the bread and which for the butter."

As for the Tartars, _they're_ troublesome in another way. They make
prime workmen--there's no denyin' it; and I had ought to know, seein' I
was over a gang of 'em myself for more'n a year--but they're the
hot-bloodedest lot as ever I saw yet, and reg'lar born imps for
fightin'; and when _they_ git up a shindy, look out! I can speak, for I
saw the big fight betwixt them and the Rooshans at Kazan 'bout three
year ago; and if you cares to hear the story, I'll tell yer jist how it
all happened.

You tell me as you've been to Kazan, and so, o' course, you'll remember
that the "Tartar Town," as they calls it, lies a mile or two east o' the
reg'lar Rooshan quarter; and midway between 'em's a dry gully
(leastways, it's dry in the summer-time, but you should jist see it
arter the spring thaw!), with a little bridge over it. Now, the Rooshan
gangs and the Tartar gangs, a-comin' from their work, used to cross each
other jist at this bridge; and o' course there was a good deal o'
chaffin' among 'em, and some fightin', too, now and then; for I needn't
tell _you_ that a Rooshan and a Tartar are jist about as fond of each
other as a Rooshan and a Turk. Now-a-days, the masters have had the
gumption to change the hours of wor