, in solitude and silence day
and night.

His experiences with an exorbitant _drojky_-driver at St.
Petersburg are worthy of record. They remind one of a story which he
himself used to tell as having happened to a friend of his at Oxford.
The latter had driven up in a cab to Tom Gate, and offered the cabman
the proper fare, which was, however, refused with scorn. After a long
altercation he left the irate cabman to be brought to reason by the
porter, a one-armed giant of prodigious strength. When he was leaving
college, he stopped at the gate to ask the porter how he had managed
to dispose of the cabman. "Well, sir," replied that doughty champion,
"I could not persuade him to go until I floored him."

After a hearty breakfast I left Liddon to rest and write
letters, and went off shopping, &c., beginning with a call
on Mr. Muir at No. 61, Galerne Ulitsa. I took a
_drojky_ to the house, having first bargained with the
driver for thirty _kopecks_; he wanted forty to begin
with. When we got there we had a little scene, rather a
novelty in my experience of _drojky_-driving. The
driver began by saying "_Sorok_" (forty) as I got out;
this was a warning of the coming storm, but I took no notice
of it, but quietly handed over the thirty. He received them
with scorn and indignation, and holding them out in his open
hand, delivered an eloquent discourse in Russian, of which
_sorok_ was the leading idea. A woman, who stood by
with a look of amusement and curiosity, perhaps understood
him. _I_ didn't, but simply held out my hand for the
thirty, returned them to the purse and counted out
twenty-five instead. In doing this I felt something like a
man pulling the string of a shower-bath--and the effect was
like it--his fury boiled over directly, and quite eclipsed
all the former row. I told him in very bad Russian that I
had offered thirty once, but wouldn't again; but this, oddly
enough, did not pacify him. Mr. Muir's servant told him the
same thing at length, and finally Mr. Muir himself came out
and gave him the substance of it sharply and shortly--but he
failed to see it in a proper light. Some people are very
hard to please.

When staying at a friend's house at Kronstadt he wrote:--

Liddon had surrendered his overcoat early in the day, and
when going we found it must be recovered from the
waiting-maid,