Nevertheless, as my experience assured me
that a Russian shopkeeper invariably begins by
producing the worst article he has, I tossed the
boots from me, saying, "Won't do; better."
Another drawer was opened, a third and fourth
were gone over, with the same result. On the
fifth attempt I condescended to examine the
articles produced: the good man having
declared, with the usual oath, that each in its
turn was the best he had. The soles of the
boots in my hand were of pasteboard, with a
thin coating of leather neatly glued over it,
and nicely polished up. The fur was cat's
hair (without any skin), also glued to the legs,
and the legs themselves were of the thinnest
possible horse-hide.

"Listen; these will not do; you must not
detain me. If you have not any better, I
must go."

"No, your honour, better than these cannot
be made. They will wear all your life, Yea
Boch!"

"Then I must go to another shop."

"Stop! I will look again. Ah! Heaven help
me, here they are!"

Better, but not up to my mark. None of the
boots would do; and in despair I made for the
door, but was intercepted, and implored to remain
a moment. A pair of excellent-looking boots was
now fished out from a corner. The legs came
considerably above the knees, the fur was a real skin,
and the soles were evidently sewed, not pasted
on. These I thought would do, and I laid them
aside until I should have selected the
portmanteau.

I was shown articles made of pasteboard to
represent leather, of paper and wood, of paper
and leather, and of leather as thin and as useless
as paper. As they were produced, I was informed,
with the usual solemn asseveration, that each in
its turn was the best that could be made, and all
solid leather. Another attempted escape to the
door brought out the real thing: at least, what
had to me all the appearance of a real solid
leather portmanteau. Now came the tug of
war—the price. The last half-hour had been
mere skirmishing. My friend began a long
eulogium on the goods: the words pouring in
a torrent through his beard. They were
everything conceivable that is good; would last an
age; were made specially for a prince; I might
travel in the boots to Siberia and back, if so
inclined, and never cool my feet; the
portmanteau would go with me to China, or one
hundred times over the Urals; the emperor had
no better portmanteau. And between each
clause of his eulogy he cried "Yea Boch!"
He concluded by asking seventeen roubles for
the boots, and thirty-one for the portmanteau:
in all forty-eight roubles, or seven pounds ten,
and at that price he.was making me a present of
them, "Yea Boch!"

I offered sixteen roubles, or two pounds ten.
"Sixteen would not pay the making; but
hear me! Take them for forty. I shall lose the
rest. What's to be done?"

"No, take sixteen, or I go instantly."

"Yea Boch! it is too little by half; but hear
for the last time." Here he seized me by one
hand, put an arm round my neck, and hissed
in my ear, "Thirty roubles. There! I am
giving them."

"Sixteen is my last word." I said good day,
and made for the door, but had scarcely got
outside when he fastened on me by both shoulders,
dragged me back into the shop, and bringing his
great beard and greasy face close before mine,
as if to impart a great secret, recapitulated
all his encomiums, with greater force and
with more earnest appeals to "Boch" to
attest his truth—all which he concluded by
asking twenty-five roubles. This time I made so
determined a bolt that I succeeded in getting two
doors off, on the way to a rival establishment,
and was already in the hands of five or six
touters pulling me in different directions, when
again my old triend came running after me.

"Come back, baron, come! What a hurry
you are in"—I had given him a precious hour—
"I will take less."

Not wishing to go through the preliminaries
in another shop to which I had already
submitted, and knowing the shops to be all much
alike, I returned to the fray, and after haggling
and chaffering for another twenty minutes, during
which my friend passed through stages of twenty,
nineteen, eighteen and a half, eighteen, &c., we
finally concluded the very stiff bargain, at my
original offer: sixteen roubles: which the dealer
took with most placid satisfaction. I felt
victorious, and said, How shameful of you to ask
three times more than you take, and tell so many
lies! "Oh!" he replied, "words do not rob
your pocket. I am no thief. It is all fair
bargaining."

As I left the place I saw him signing the
cross before the joss, whether in thankfulness for
a good bargain or prayer for a pardon I cannot
tell; but after I got home I scrutinised the
purchases in a good light, and found that I had
no cause to be vainglorious. I was no exception
to the common rule, but had been so
completely cheated that I would gladly have
disposed of my bargain at a loss of fifty per cent.
I learnt afterwards that this same shopkeeper is
a serf, worth four hundred thousand roubles;
that he owns ten shops in Moscow, and some
in Petersburg; and that while he ate black
bread and herring, he had two extravagant
sons at the university, and daughters
accomplished in all the graces of a Russian education,
enjoying horses, equipages, and a grand house.
Such instances of wealth accumulated by
frugality and extortion, are not rare among the Russians.

In Tula I saw the usual abundance of churches
and popes (priests), barracks and soldiers,
merchants and hucksters, peasants in dirty sheepskin
coats, officers and gospodins in uniform
driving in stylish equipages drawn by fast
trotters from the steppes, or cobs from Siberia.
There were all forms of Russian private vehicle
and public conveyances, with two, three, or