200 PETERSBURG IN WINTER 



kinds of odds and ends thrown in. The holders of these 

 shops are mostly Jews and Jewesses, and most of them are 

 reputed to be receivers of stolen property, which of course 

 was no affair of ours. After we had gone there a few times 

 and had paid our footing with sufficient liberality, they 

 received us as friends and showed us many secret hoards 

 of old and valuable porcelain, embroidery, paintings, ikons, 

 brass work and other art treasures. My wife gave the name 

 of "The Bull" to one cheery Johnnie, who always laughed 

 whenever he happened, which was often, to drop and break 

 some nice piece of old china he was showing us. 



Buying from our Alexandrovsky Reenok friends was like 

 playing a game of poker ; for they made their bluff, not from 

 the value of w T hat was in their hand, but from the amount they 

 thought we would "see" them at. They must obtain their 

 goods in a wonderfully cheap market, which we shall never 

 enter. On one occasion, we wanted to buy a frame for a 

 picture, and saw one which contained a beautiful water- 

 colour painting of a Russian girl in national costume. Not 

 daring to regard it closely and thus to show our interest, 

 we waited for the shopman to get a frame of the required 

 size. At last he put his eyes on the water colour and said, 

 (< That frame will suit you. You can have it and the picture 

 for a polteemk " (half a rouble). Of course they got the best 

 of us now and then ; but as both parties were well satisfied, 

 no harm was done. About half of them spoke German, one 

 knew French, and three or four of them had learned English 

 in the East End of London or in New York. We went 

 there almost every clay and were always met with pleasant 

 smiles and cries of " Kaufen Sie, kaufen Sie / " (" Buy, buy ! "). 



Some of the Russian bronzes are very fine. I bought 

 from " The Bull " a very beautiful statue of a troika in which 

 the horses are designed with greater anatomical accuracy 

 than I have ever seen in any other statue, big or little. 



