58 THROUGH RUSSIA ON A MUSTANG. 



a share of his attentions. Though absent in the flesh, 

 Sascha declared he could still see them through the 

 gray stone walls, and, stretching out his hand toward 

 his old dormitory, he apostrophized the tutors in a 

 most theatrical manner, declaring his keen satisfaction 

 at the mighty change in his fortunes, that had trans- 

 ferred him from the world of stools and studies, to the 

 saddle and the freedom of a horse's back* 



Beyond the universities, we plunged into plebeian 

 Moscow, the world of red-shirted workmen and cheap 

 frocked women ; low vodka shops and bare, roomy 

 traktirs, where the red-shirted workmen assemble each 

 evening to gossip and swallow astonishing quantities 

 of tea, inferior in quality and very, very weak. 



Here was Moscow's social and material contrast to 

 the big houses, with the sleeping dvorniks, and of the 

 silent street of painted house fronts, curtained bal- 

 conies and all the rest. Though day had not yet 

 dawned for other sections of Moscow, it had long since 

 dawned for the inhabitants of this. Employers of 

 labor in Moscow know nothing of the vexed questions 

 as to eight-hour laws, ten-hour laws, or even laws of 

 twelve. Thousands of red shirts, issuing from the 

 crowded hovels of this quarter, like rats from their 

 hiding places, had scattered over the city long before 

 our arrival on the scene ; other thousands were still 

 issuing forth, and streaming along the badly cobbled 

 streets. Under their arms, or in tin pails, were loaves 

 of black rye bread, their food for the day, which would 

 be supplemented at meal times by a salted cucumber, 

 or a slice of melon, from the nearest grocery. 



For five versts, according to Sascha, who, Russian- 



