“’Eography,” says Mrs. Booby, in one of the famous old Russian comedies which we were so fortunate as to witness on the Moscow stage:  “Ah! good heavens!  And what are cabmen for, then?  That’s their business.  It’s not a genteel branch of learning.  A gentleman merely says:  ’Take me to such or such a place,’ and the cabman drives him wherever he pleases.”

Nowadays, it is advisable to be vulgar and know the geography of Moscow, if one is really enjoying it independently.  It is a trifle less complicated than the geography of the Balkan Principalities, and, unlike that of the Balkan Principalities, it has its humorous side, which affords alleviation.  The Moscow cabby has now, as in the time of Mrs. Booby, the reputation of being a very hard customer to deal with.  He is not often so ingenuous, even in appearance, as the man who drove close to the sidewalk and entreated our custom by warbling, sweetly:  “We must have work or we can’t have bread.”  He is only to be dreaded, however, if one be genteelly ignorant, after Mrs. Booby’s plan.  I cannot say that I ever had any difficulty in finding any place I wanted, either with the aid (or hindrance) of an izvostchik, or on foot, in Moscow or other Russian towns.  But for this and other similar reasons I acquired a nickname among the natives,—­molodyetz, that is to say, a dashing, enterprising young fellow, the feminine form of the word being nonexistent.  A Russian view of the matter is amusing, however.

“I never saw such a town in which to hunt up any one,” said a St. Petersburg man in Moscow to me.  “They give you an address:  ’Such and such a street, such a house.’  For instance, ’Green Street, house of Mr. Black.’  You go.  First you get hold of the street in general, and discover that the special name applies only to one block or so, two or three versts away from the part where you chance to have landed.  Moscow is even more a city of magnificent distances, you know, than St. Petersburg.  Next you discover that there is no ‘house of Mr. Black.’  Mr. Black died, respected and beloved, God be with him! a hundred years ago or less, and the house has changed owners three times since.  So far, it is tolerably plain sailing.  Then it appears that the house you are in search of is not in the street at all, but tucked in behind it, on a parallel lane, round several corners and elbows.” (I will explain, in parenthesis, that the old system of designating a house by the name of the owner, which prevailed before the introduction of numbers, still survives extensively, even in Petersburg.)

“The next time you set out on a search expedition,” continued my informant, after a cup of tea and a cigarette to subdue his emotions, “you insist on having the number of the house.  Do you get it?  Oh yes! and with a safeguard added, ‘Inquire of the laundress.’ [This was a parody on, “Inquire of the Swiss,” or “of the yard-porter.”] You start off in high feather; number and guide are