guidance of Wisky we took up our abode in a Russian house.
House did I call it!-- if ever there was a palace this was one. We
established ourselves in the kitchen; a warm, comfortable place we found
it, where we had much opportunity for observation, both of the denizens
of the place and their various occupations.

"It seems to me, Wisky," said I, on the night following that of our
arrival, "that there is no end to the number of servants that pass in
and out of this dwelling! Who is that fellow in the blue cloth caftan,
fastened under his left arm with three silver buttons, and girded round
the waist with a coloured silk scarf? His fine bushy beard seems to
match the fur with which his high four-cornered cap is trimmed."

"That is the Tartar coachman," replied Wisky; "a dashing fellow is he,
and a bold driver through the crowded streets of the city. The pretty
youths yonder are the postilions. Young and small they must be, to suit
the taste of a Russian noble. The worse for them, poor boys, as they are
less able to endure the bitter cold of a winter's night, when, if they
drop asleep on their horses, they are never likely to awake any more!"

"And are their masters actually cruel enough," I exclaimed, "to expose
them to such suffering and risk?"

"My much esteemed brother," replied the Russian rat, "doubtless your
clear mind has already come to the conclusion that selfishness is
inherent in the human race. A young noble is at a ball; must he quit its
bright enchantments, and the society of the fair whom he admires,
because a bearded coachman is freezing without? A beauteous lady,
wrapped in ermine and velvet, is weeping in the theatre over the woes of
some imaginary heroine; would you have her dry her tearful eyes, and
leave the scene of touching interest and elegant excitement, because
icicles are hanging from the locks of her little postilion, and his
head is gradually sinking on his breast, as the fatal sleep steals over
him? Selfish!-- yes, all human beings are selfish!"

"There are exceptions to that rule," thought I, for I remembered the
stories which I had heard in the cabin; and I also recollected the
conduct of their narrator, Captain Blake, towards the starving little
thief in London.

"I have been trying," said Whiskerandos, "to count the servants in this
house; but no sooner do I think that my task is done, than in comes some
new one, speaking some different language, wearing some different
costume, an