The travellers took their seats in their respective carriages. Tchichikoff\'s britchka drove in a line with that in which Nosdrieff was seated with his brother-in-law, and thus they had every facility for continuing their conversation during their journey to Nosdrieff\'s estate. These two carriages were followed at a slight distance behind by Nosdrieff\'s dilapidated conveyance. In it were seated his servant Porphir, and his new acquisition the young bull-dog.

As the conversation of the three travellers could be but of little interest to the reader, we will omit it altogether, and say a word instead about Nosdrieff, whose fate it will perhaps be to play an important part in this narrative.

Nosdrieff\'s face we premise to be already a little familiar to our reader. Men like him could easily be met with by everybody, who will take the trouble and travel in Russia. They are what are called men who have cut their eye teeth. Their reputation begins from their boyhood, when they were much admired by their school-fellows, but for all that never escaped a sound thrashing occasionally. In their face, there is always something open, straightforward, if not impudent, to be seen. They soon succeed in ingratiating themselves, and ere you have had time to recover from your surprise they call you already "my dear fellow." They seem to establish their friendly relations for an eternity; but it will always happen that those who have been imprudent enough to form an intimacy with them, will, on the very evening of the day, at some friendly supper or rout, fall out with them. They are always very great talkers, hard drinkers, and what is termed, jolly good fellows, and with all that, men of prepossessing appearance.

Nosdrieff, at thirty-five years of age, was in all these talents as accomplished as he was when only eighteen or twenty; exceedingly fond of dissipation. His marriage did not in the least interfere with his pleasures, nor change him, so much the less, since his wife, shortly after their marriage; quitted this world for a better one, leaving behind her two little children, which were of no earthly use or consolation to him. His infants, however, were properly taken care of by a housekeeper. He never could stay at home for more than twenty-four hours at a time. His sense of divination was so acute that he could smell at a distance of twenty or thirty miles where a fair was to be held, or a ball or rout to be given. In no time he was sure to be there, lead on a dispute, create a disturbance at the green table, because he, like other men of his description, had a passion for gambling. He was fond of card-playing, as we have seen already in the first chapter; and he did not play without a little cheating, because he knew so many different tricks and finesses, and for that very reason the game often ended in another sort of play; he either got a sound thrashing, or his full and glossy whiskers pulled about so much so, that very often he had to return home with only one of his hairy ornaments, and that even of a spare appearance.

But the constitution of his full and rosy cheeks was so excellent, that with an extraordinary fertility of growth, a new pair of whiskers soon made their appearance again, and even finer and stronger than the former.

But the strangest feature in his character was—and this could perhaps only happen in Russia—that a very short time after, he could coolly meet again the very same friends who had but recently horsewhipped him, and meet them as if nothing had been the matter between them; and as the phrase goes, he said nothing, and they said nothing about it.

Nosdrieff was in some respects also an historical personage. He never went to an evening party without there being some talk about him afterwards. Some event or another was sure to take place wherever he went; he would either be obliged to leave the room under an escort of strangers, or be forcibly led away by his own friends, who ventured to introduce him. If either of these cases did not happen, it might be depended upon that something else was sure to occur and make him notorious, and which to any other person would not happen under any circumstances; he would either get tipsy to such a degree as to do nothing else but laugh continually, or commit himself to such a degree that at last he will begin to blush at them himself.

Strange to say, he would try to impose upon persons without the least advantage to himself: he would of a sudden protest, that once he possessed a horse or a dog of a green or a blue colour, and such and similar nonsense; so that those who have been listening to him, will leave him and say, "what falsehoods that man is telling, to be sure!"

There are people, who have a passion for injuring their fellow-men frequently without any provocation. Some of us Russians, for an example, men of rank, of prepossessing appearance and with large decorations on their breasts, will often give you unquestionable assurances of friendship whilst pressing your hand warmly, speak to you about scientific things, which require deep study—and then, the very next moment, and in your presence, they will go and play you some base trick. And they will injure you as meanly as a man of the fifteenth degree of the Russian nobility—which by the bye is the lowest, though this was not at all what you could have expected from a man wearing a star or two on his breast, discussing scientific things which require deep study and serious meditation. So great will your surprise be at his conduct, that you will remain abashed, shrug your shoulders, and say nothing.

Nosdrieff had exactly such a passion, whoever was the more acquainted or befriended by him, was sure to be the chosen victim of this despicable passion of his; he launched some of his monstrous nonsense, anything more stupid could scarcely be imagined, yet he succeeded either in breaking off some promise of marriage or some contract of sale, and what not; and in doing all that, he never called himself your enemy; on the contrary, if fate would have it, that you should meet him again, he would accost you like an old friend, and even say, "halloah! here you are at last, but you are not my dear fellow, because you never come to see me."

Nosdrieff was in many respects also a multifarious man, to use a common phrase, we may call him, a man up to anything and everything. At the same instant he would propose to you, to go and drive wherever you like, If even to the end of the world, or in search of Sir John Franklin, then again he would be ready to enter into any speculation with you, exchange with you everything tha............