is "Dreams of Venice,"
the most vivid and truthful description of the City of the Sea ever
written; and what have I done, at the worst, but try in my humble way
to give you a general idea of Moscow in the pleasing form of a
midnight adventure, ending in an assassination? You have seen the
Kremlin and the Church of St. Basil, and the by-streets and alleys,
and the interior of a low traktir, and the cats, and the Russian beds,
and many other interesting features of this wonderful city, in a
striking and peculiar point of view, and I hold that you have no right
to complain because, like Louis Philippe, I sacrificed my crown for
the benefit of my subject. Besides, has not my friend Bayard Taylor
given to the world his wonderful experiences of the Hasheesh of
Damascus; his varied and extraordinary hallucinations of intellect
during the progress of its operations? And why should not I my humble
experiences of the tchai of Moscow?

_Reader._ Slightly sprinkled with _vodka_, or "the little water."

Oh, that was just thrown in to give additional effect to the tea!

_Reader._ It won't do, sir--it won't do! The deception was too
transparent throughout.

Well, then, since you saw through it from the beginning, there is no
harm done, and you can readily afford to make an apology for impugning
my voracity.

_Lady Reader._ But who was the heroine? What became of her?

Ah! my dear madam, there you have me! I suspect she was a French
countess, or more likely an actress engaged in the line of tragedy.
Her style, at all events, was tragical.

_Lady Reader_ (elevating her lovely eyebrows superciliously). She was
rather demonstrative, it must be admitted. You brought her in
apparently to fulfill your promise, but sent her off the stage very
suddenly. You should, at least, have restored her to her friends, and
not left her in that den of robbers.

That, dear madam, was my natural inclination; but the fact is, d'ye
see, I was drugged--

_Lady Reader_ (sarcastically). It won't do, Mr. Butterfield--your
heroine was a failure! In future you had better confine yourself to
facts--or fresh water.

Madam, I'd confine myself to the Rock of Gibraltar or an iceberg to
oblige you; therefore, with your permission, I shall proceed to give
you, in my next, a reliable description of the Kremlin.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE KREMLIN.

Not the least of the evils resulting from this harum-scarum way of
traveling and writing is the fact that one