eguard added, 'Inquire of the laundress.' [This was a
parody on, "Inquire of the Swiss," or "of the yard-porter."] You start
off in high feather; number and guide are provided, only a fool could
fail to find it, and you know that you are a person who is considered
rather above the average in cleverness. But that is in Petersburg, and I
may as well tell you at once that clever Petersburgers are fools
compared to the Moscow men, in a good many points, such as driving a
hard bargain. Well, suppose that the house you want is No. 29. You find
No. 27 or No. 28, and begin to crow over your cleverness. But the next
house on one side is No. 319, and the house on the other side is No. 15;
the one opposite is No. 211, or No. 7, or something idiotic like that,
and all because the city authorities permit people to retain the old
district number of the house, to affix the new street number, or to post
up both at their own sweet will! As you cannot find the laundress to
question, under the circumstances, you interview every Swiss
[hall-porter], yard-porter, policeman, and peasant for a verst round
about; and all the satisfaction you get is, 'In whose house? That is Mr.
Green's and this is Mr. Bareboaster's, and yonder are Count Thingumbob's
and Prince Whatyoumaycall's.' So you retreat once more, baffled."
Fortifying himself with more tea and cigarettes, the victim of Moscow
went on:--

"But there is still another plan. [A groan.] The favorite way to give an
address is, 'In the parish of Saint So-and-So.' It does n't pin you down
to any special house, street, or number, which is, of course, a decided
advantage when you are hunting for a needle in a haystack. And the
Moscow saints and parishes have such names!" Here the narrator's
feelings overcame him, and when I asked for some of the parochial titles
he was too limp to reply. I had already noticed the peculiar
designations of many churches, and had begun to suspect myself of
stupidity or my cabman and other informants of malicious jesting. Now,
however, I investigated the subject, and made a collection of specimens.
These extraordinary names are all derived--with one or two exceptions
for which I can find no explanation--from the peculiarities of the
soil in the parish, the former use to which the site of the church was
put, or the avocations of the inhabitants of its neighborhood in the
olden times, when most of the space outside of the Kremlin and China
Town was devoted to the purve