of wooden booths, in which innumerable varieties of living stock
are offered for sale--geese, ducks, chickens, rabbits, pigeons, and
birds of various sorts. I sometimes went down here and bargained for
an hour or so over a fat goose or a Muscovy duck, not with any
ultimate idea of purchasing it, but merely because it was offered to
me at a reduced price. It was amusing, also, to study the manners and
customs of the dealer, and enjoy their amazement when, after causing
them so much loss of time, I would hand over five kopeks and walk off.
Some of them, I verily believe, will long entertain serious doubts as
to the sanity of the Californian public; for Dominico, my guide,
always took particular pride in announcing that I was from that great
country, and was the richest man in it, being, to the best of his
knowledge, the only one who had money enough to spare to travel all
the way to Moscow, merely for the fun of the thing.

I may as well mention, parenthetically, that Dominico was rather an
original in his way. His father was an Italian and his mother a
Russian. I believe he was born in Moscow. How he came to adopt the
profession of guide I don't know, unless it was on account of some
natural proclivity for an easy life. A grave, lean, saturnine man was
Dominico--something of a cross between Machiavelli and Paganini. If he
knew any thing about the wonders and curiosities of Moscow he kept it
a profound secret. It was only by the most rigid inquiry and an adroit
system of cross-examination that I could get any thing out of him, and
then his information was vague and laconic, sometimes a little
sarcastic, but never beyond what I knew myself. Yet he was polite,
dignified, and gentlemanly--never refused to drink a glass of beer
with me, and always knew the way to a traktir. To the public
functionaries with whom we came in contact during the course of our
rambles his air was grand and imposing; and on the subject of money he
was sublimely nonchalant, caring no more for rubles than I did for
kopeks. Once or twice he hinted to me that he was of noble blood, but
laid no particular stress upon that, since it was his misfortune at
present to be in rather reduced circumstances. Some time or other he
would go to Italy and resume his proper position there. In justice to
Dominico, I must add that he never neglected an opportunity of praying
for me before any of the public shrines; and at the close of our
acquaintance he let me off pret