ST. PETERSBURG, _April 22nd_. This afternoon, wishing to talk over the topics of the day and the political outlook, I went to see a friend of mine, a certain Dimitri Nikolaievitch A——. Dimitri Nikolaievitch was a failure. He had started life with smiling prospects and the promise of a bright future, but he wasted his youth and his fortune in dissipation, and after spending some years in the Government service as an official he retired and embarked upon a journalistic venture; but, since he was entirely devoid of ambition, hopelessly unpractical, and fundamentally uncompetitive he failed, and was soon forced to abandon an enterprise which left him burdened with debts. He now earns a scanty income by giving lessons in Russian to foreigners. His whole literary production is confined to one or two suggestive literary and historical pamphlets long since out of print. I found him at home in his room, which is on the sixth floor of a large barrack in a remote quarter of the town. The landing on which he lives swarms with inhabitants, and a whole bevy of tailors were busily at work in the room opposite to his. His room is small, and scantily furnished with a chair, a table, a low bed, a few frameless photographs stuck on the wall, a mandoline, a guitar, and a _babalaika_. The room is also inhabited by a bullfinch, a green lizard, and a fox terrier. Dimitri Nikolaievitch himself looks younger than he is; he is rather fat, with fair, unkempt hair, very light blue eyes lighting up a wrinkled and rather puffy and unshaved face; his jacket is stained and lacking in buttons.