Space will not permit, neither would the end of our story be advanced by, a detail of the numerous and adroit dodges the Nikolskians invented in order to work upon Tchitchikof's supposed philanthropy. Suffice it to say, that they were not in the least degree successful. It seemed as though you had only to appeal directly to Tchitchikof's charity to close up his bowels of compassion, and render him at once callous and niggardly. Perhaps, too, as some thought, he was as acute as he was eccentric, and could distinguish between real and feigned distress. However it might be, it was soon remarkably clear that Tchitchikof, madman though he was, was not to be done; and the baffled conspirators did not hesitate to say, that, after all, he was no such remarkable friend of his species; that he kept a keen eye on the main chance; and if it were his gratification to do good, he made a little go as far as it could, and was singularly blind to meritorious poverty. Accordingly, Tchitchikof having now been a fortnight in Nikolsk, was fast ceasing to be an object of interest, when his eccentricity broke out in a fresh place, and there seemed some likelihood of the children of Nikolsk, in the end, spoiling that Egyptian. It so happened, that at that time the landowners, or rather serf-owners, constituted the most depressed 'interest' in that portion of the Russian Empire. Not that they were suffering from free-trade of any kind, or clamouring for open or disguised protection: the cause of their depression was the prevalence of a deadly epidemic, which reduced the number of their serfs with remorseless vigour--combined with the tax which a paternal government levied on them, as a consideration for its maintaining them in their humane and Christian property. One of the principles of Russian taxation is this: that as every individual in the empire, European or Asiatic, is the child of the czar, owes him fealty and obedience, and receives protection, light, and glory from him, as from a central sun, so every individual owes in return a direct contribution to the fund by which the czar-father supports that light and glory. This is the theory of Russian taxation; but against its actual carrying out in fact, is opposed the old difficulty, that from him who has nothing, nothing can possibly be extracted; and as the poor serfs have no more means of paying taxes than the hogs and cattle their fellow-slaves, a considerate paternal government drops its theory, and makes the landowner pay the poll-tax for the slaves he possesses, much as an English gentleman pays taxes for his horses and dogs, horses and dogs being as little able to pay tax themselves as the Russian serf. Now, in a kind of deep irony, a serf is called a _soul_. M. K---- or M. T---- owns so many _souls_, Miss L----'s marriage-portion was so many _souls_, Madame B----'s dowry was a hundred _souls_; and this word soul only applies to the male serfs--women and children being given