o themselves,
stand always in the middle of the street and regulate the traffic.

We will hire an _izvostchik_ and join the throng. The process is simple;
it consists in setting ourselves up at auction on the curbstone, among
the numerous cabbies waiting for a job, and knocking ourselves down to
the lowest bidder. If our Vanka (Johnny, the generic name for cabby)
drives too slowly, obviously with the object of loitering away our
money, a policeman will give him a hint to whip up, or we may effect the
desired result by threatening to speak to the next guardian of the
peace. If Vanka attempts to intrude upon the privileges of the private
carriages, for whom is reserved the space next the tramway track and the
row of high, silvered posts which bear aloft the electric lights, a
sharp "_Beregis!_" (Look out for yourself!) will be heard from the first
fashionable coachman who is impeded in his swift career, and he will be
called to order promptly by the police. Ladies may not, unfortunately,
drive in the smartest of the public carriages, but must content
themselves with something more modest and more shabby. But Vanka is
usually good-natured, patient, and quite unconscious of his shabbiness,
at least in the light of a grievance or as affecting his dignity. It was
one of these shabby, but democratic and self-possessed fellows who
furnished us with a fine illustration of the peasant qualities. We
encountered one of the Emperor's cousins on his way to his regimental
barracks; the Grand Duke mistook us for acquaintances, and saluted. Our
_izvostchik_ returned the greeting.

"Was that Vasily Dmitrich?" we asked in Russian form.

"Yes, madam."

"Whom was he saluting?"

"Us," replied the man, with imperturbable gravity. Very different from
our poor fellow, who remembers his duties to the saints and churches,
and salutes Kazan Cathedral, as we pass, with cross and bared head, is
the fashionable coachman, who sees nothing but his horses. Our man's
cylindrical cap of imitation fur is old, his summer _armyak_ of blue
cloth fits, as best it may, over his lean form and his sheepskin
_tulup_, and is girt with a cheap cotton sash.

The head of the fashionable coachman is crowned with a becoming
gold-laced cap, in the shape of the ace of diamonds, well stuffed with
down, and made of scarlet, sky-blue, sea-green, or other hue of velvet.
His fur-lined armyak, reaching to his feet,--through whose silver
buttons under the left arm he is b