deal with a domain under two different governments,
jealous and at war with each other, while
envious neighbouring states are sulkily looking
on. He has found his account before under
such circumstances, and he knows very well
that he will be practically his own monarch,
lord chancellor, and council, in this favoured
locality. He has come to the large corn
exporting port of NICOLAIEV, to meet a railway
contractor, to sell him the right of way through
his newly acquired property, and to persuade
him incidentally into buying the next year's
wheat crop—on his recently acquired land—
which last he looks upon as a minor consideration.

It must be observed that no one thinks of
sticking to one trade in Russia, and the
contractor is as ready to buy wheat as he would
be to buy twenty thousand tea-kettles or a
French local newspaper. He and the prince
perfectly understand each other, and have had
a running account for many years. Nevertheless,
the nobleman has got the best of it. He
has bamboozled that contractor. He has got an
advance on his next year's crops; he has made
a handsome thing of the right of way; and he
has sold the estate altogether to a Greek orange-
dealer, suddenly enriched at the expense of
Lloyd's by fraudulent wrecks and insurances.

All this comes to a pretty round sum, even
when the bigwigs at St. Petersburg, whom
it will not do to offend, have had their share
out of it. So, with both pockets full of money,
away goes my prince to dine with the local
governor, admiral, or chief personage then and
there present. After dinner, at about nine
o'clock, he adjourns to meet a fine party assembled
elsewhere, especially in his honour.

From one end to the other of Russia my
prince is renowned for the charm of his
wit, the variety of his information, and the
extraordinary vivacity of his conversation. His
voice in singing would make the fortune of
a tenor. His figure is very remarkable, tall,
stalwart, florid, bright-eyed, dark, pleasant,
winning. He is one of those rare Russians
who is at once humorous and scholarly. He
has travelled, thought, acted in many countries,
and he is one of the sharpest men of business
known among the human race. His profession,
indeed, is so good that it naturally absorbs all
the best needy men in Russia, as the church
did in Western Europe during the middle ages.

From nine in the evening till one in the
morning my prince keeps his hearers enthralled.
He is delighted with everything, and it is good
to see with what harmless nothings he can be
amused, and what a singular grace he gives to
them. Of course he is king of the company,
although it is composed of two serene highnesses,
an ex-ambassador, and other notabilities; for
indeed he is an important ally; and though it
is not advisable to let him know too much of
one's affairs lest he should scent out a lawsuit,
yet he is a powerful friend in case of need,
and can do things to surprise all men.
There is probably nothing in Russia that he
could not do for an adequate consideration;
and, strange to say, I am not writing of an
individual, but of a class; a class small, indeed,
but one which numbers some hundreds among
its members; a class which has a representative
in every phase of Russian society, and in every
city, town, and village throughout the empire.

Most people present have something to say
to my prince. They watch their opportunity,
and as everybody is laughing at some brilliant
sally or odd story, they walk him off behind
pillars and statuettes towards bow-windows or
conservatories, and talk to him earnestly. Most
serious business in Russia among gentle and
simple is done in this way, cigarette in hand.
But everything comes to an end, and after a
champagne supper, served at midnight, for it is
the custom to dine early, my prince grows
restless.

He is to start for his newly won, mortgaged,
and sold estate early in the morning, to make
arrangements for getting something more out
of the purchaser than the mere purchase-
money he has already received. He knows that
he will find fifty ways of doing this, and that
it needs no previous thought at all; so meantime
he will just look in for half an hour at the
club of nobles. His wife, a fat, inert, extinct
princess, utterly sat upon and subdued, knows
very well what that means. She tries a feeble
remonstrance; and his kind host and hostess
feel a genuine sorrow to see him go. His
wife is precious as enabling him to claim rights
of nationality in Moldavia, of which rich thriftless
land she is a native born; but her counsels
influence him little. He has a vain-glorious,
boyish, and thoroughly Russian pleasure in trying
to seem wayward and extravagant in the
eyes of his host and hostess; so the gallant
Dooyoumalsky is off immediately after supper.
He hums a tune from Don Giovanni as he
pockets his stars and decorations on the staircase,
and the next minute his droschky is heard
hurrying out of the court-yard.

At dawn, some hours later, a flushed and
tipsy gentleman, accompanied by half a dozen
smoking-companions, all eagerly talking and
gesticulating at the same time, reels into the
hotel yard, where a travelling-carriage and a
stout muffled-up lady are waiting for him to
depart. The whole company kiss each other,
cross each other very noisily and fussily, and
then away go the post-horses, bursting into a
headlong gallop as they speed towards the
corn-lands in the interior.

Nothing is said about it—that would be
waste of breath, for the thing has happened so
often, and will happen so often again but the
fact is, that Dooyoumalsky has just lost his
new fortune. Between one and eight o'clock on
an autumn morning he has gambled away every
rouble of the money just received, and a very
large sum beside. When he takes his seat near
his wife in the travelling-carriage, he is penniless
for the twentieth time. This would not
signify much, but for the debt of honour he has
just incurred at the club. That must be paid
anyhow; and the standing crops, on which he
expatiated so much to the purchaser of the