e half his price, and I purchased
one, such as I wished, of a different design for a small sum extra. I
may have been cheated, but, under the circumstances, I was satisfied.

Will it be believed? Bushybeard was lying in wait for me at the door,
ready to receive me, wreathed in smiles which I can describe only by the
detestable adjective "affable," as I took pains to pass his
establishment on my way back. Then the spirit of mischief entered into
me. I reciprocated his smiles and said: "Ivan Baburin, at shop No. 8,
round the corner, has dozens of lamps such as you deal in, for half the
price of yours. You might be able to get them even cheaper, if you know
how to haggle well. But I'm afraid you don't, for you seem to have been
horribly cheated in your last trade, when you bought your present stock
at the price you mentioned. How could any one have the conscience to rob
an honest, innocent man like you so dreadfully?"

He looked dazed, and the last time I cast a furtive glance behind me he
had not recovered sufficiently to dash after me and overwhelm me with
protestations of his uprightness, _yay Bogu!_ and other lingual
cascades.

From the zest with which I have beheld a shopman and a customer waste
half an hour chaffering an article up and down five kopeks (two and a
half cents or less), I am convinced that they enjoy the excitement of
it, and that time is cheap enough with them to allow them to indulge in
this exhilarating practice.

What is the remedy for this state of things? How are foreigners, who
pride themselves on never giving more than the value of an article, to
protect themselves? There is no remedy, I should say. One must haggle,
haggle, haggle, and submit. Guides are useless and worse, as they
probably share in the shopkeeper's profit, and so raise prices.
Recommendations of shops from guides or hotels are to be disregarded.
Not that they are worthless,--quite the reverse; only their value does
not accrue to the stranger, but to the other parties. It may well be, as
veteran travelers affirm, that one is compelled to contribute to this
mutual benefit association in any case; but there is a sort of
satisfaction after all in imagining that one is a free and independent
being, and going to destruction in his own way, unguided, while he gets
a little amusement out of his own shearing.

Any one who really likes bargaining will get his fill in Russia, every
time he sets foot out of doors, if he wishes merely t