re
of the room was the fact that in one of the paintings a nymph was
portrayed as possessing breasts of a size such as the reader can never
in his life have beheld. A similar caricaturing of nature is to be noted
in the historical pictures (of unknown origin, period, and creation)
which reach us--sometimes through the instrumentality of Russian
magnates who profess to be connoisseurs of art--from Italy; owing to
the said magnates having made such purchases solely on the advice of the
couriers who have escorted them.

To resume, however--our traveller removed his cap, and divested his neck
of a parti-coloured woollen scarf of the kind which a wife makes for
her husband with her own hands, while accompanying the gift with
interminable injunctions as to how best such a garment ought to be
folded. True, bachelors also wear similar gauds, but, in their case,
God alone knows who may have manufactured the articles! For my part,
I cannot endure them. Having unfolded the scarf, the gentleman ordered
dinner, and whilst the various dishes were being got ready--cabbage
soup, a pie several weeks old, a dish of marrow and peas, a dish of
sausages and cabbage, a roast fowl, some salted cucumber, and the sweet
tart which stands perpetually ready for use in such establishments;
whilst, I say, these things were either being warmed up or brought in
cold, the gentleman induced the waiter to retail certain fragments of
tittle-tattle concerning the late landlord of the hostelry, the amount
of income which the hostelry produced, and the character of its present
proprietor. To the last-mentioned inquiry the waiter returned the answer
invariably given in such cases--namely, "My master is a terribly hard
man, sir." Curious that in enlightened Russia so many people cannot even
take a meal at an inn without chattering to the attendant and making
free with him! Nevertheless not ALL the questions which the gentleman
asked were aimless ones, for he inquired who was Governor of the town,
who President of the Local Council, and who Public Prosecutor. In short,
he omitted no single official of note, while asking also (though with an
air of detachment) the most exact particulars concerning the landowners
of the neighbourhood. Which of them, he inquired, possessed serfs, and
how many of them? How far from the town did those landowners reside?
What was the character of each landowner, and was he in the habit of
paying frequent visits to the town? The gentl