ioo RETURN TO ST. PETERSBURG 



by foreigners, among whom there are a large number of 

 English and American tourists and Anglo-Russian residents. 



I like the 75 kopeck (is. 7d.) breakfast at which one 

 gets satisfying helpings from two dishes of which there 

 are a large assortment, and no extra charge for butter, as in 

 the other hotels ; and I like the well-bearded hall porter, who 

 is a walking " Enquire within." As he comes from the Baltic 

 Provinces, he of course speaks German and his native Lettish. 

 Having lived in Paris and Liverpool for some years, he is 

 fluent in French and English, and he has that talent which 

 none but dvorniks of the highest class possess, of being able 

 to understand what five or six excited people all speaking 

 different tongues at the same time, are saying to him. I 

 have a soft spot in my heart for hall porters of his type ; for 

 they get no pay, and have to live on the tips they obtain by 

 the exercise of a constant desire to oblige. But above all I 

 like the night porter, who is the only servant and he a 

 Russian that has ever remonstrated with me for giving him 

 what he thought too large a tip. He is a mild, pensive-faced 

 man of about forty years of age, and his eyes are somewhat 

 dimmed by the long vigils he has to keep, especially as he 

 has to spend most of the day in taking messages in order to 

 support himself and his family. I often took him with me 

 when rambling through the city and buying things, on which 

 occasions my interests were his interests. One day I asked 

 a commissionaire of the hotel how it was that the night 

 porter objected to be paid more than his due, and why he 

 would not let me be cheated when he went with me to the 

 market? The man replied that the porter was a fool, and 

 that it was very wrong of him not to try and make more 

 money than he did for his wife and children. 



Another friend of mine was the burly and cheerful 

 izvozchik (cab - driver) shown in Fig. 22. He was one of 

 the four cabbies who had the privilege of waiting outside the 



