istian feeling toward any of the brute creation,
but I don't affect cats. Nor can I say that I greatly enjoy their
music. I heard the very best bands of tom-cats every night during my
sojourn in Moscow, and consider them utterly deficient in style and
execution. It belongs, I think, to the Music of Futurity, so much
discussed by the critics of Europe during the past few years--a
peculiar school of anti-melody that requires people yet to be born to
appreciate it thoroughly. The discords may be very fine, and the
passion very striking and tempestuous, but it is worse than thrown
away on an uncultivated ear like mine.

CHAPTER XII.

A MYSTERIOUS ADVENTURE.

The police of Moscow are not an attractive class of men, considering
them in the light of guardians of the law. With a good deal of
pomposity and laziness, they mingle much filth and rascality. The
emperor may have great confidence in them, based upon some knowledge
of their talents and virtues not shared by casual tourists; but if he
would trust one of them with ten kopeks, or agree to place the life of
any intimate personal friend in their keeping, in any of the dark
alleys of Moscow, his faith in their integrity and humanity must be
greater than mine. Indeed, upon casting around me in search of a
parallel, I am not quite sure that I ever saw such a scurvy set of
vagabonds employed to preserve the public peace in any other country,
except, perhaps, in Spain. The guardians of the law in Cadiz and
Seville are dark and forbidding enough in all conscience, and
unscrupulous enough to turn a penny in any way not requiring the
exercise of personal energy; and the police of Barcelona are not
inferior in all that constitutes moral turpitude, but they can not
surpass the Moscovites in filthiness of person or any of the essential
attributes of villainy.

I have it upon good authority that they are the very worst set of
thieves in the place, and that they will not hesitate to unite with
any midnight prowler for the purpose of robbing a stranger. True, they
did not rob me, but the reason of that is obvious. I gave them to
understand at the start that I was connected with the press. You
seldom hear of a writer for newspapers being robbed; and if such a
thing ever does happen, the amount taken is never large.

As a consequence of this proclivity for ill-gotten gains on the part
of the guardians of the law, it is unsafe for a stranger to go through
the less frequented