Now for the _denouement_. At St Petersburg is or was a bank established by a paternal government for this most laudable purpose: what with deaths, taxes, and the natural extravagance that seems to accompany the possession of land in all countries, the Russian landowners are often embarrassed, and were driven, before this bank was established, to seek assistance from usurious Jews, the end of which was frequently total ruin, and a Hebraicising of the race of landowners, not pleasant to a Russian and a Christian czar. Therefore this bank was established to lend money to distressed members of the landed interest; compelled by its charter to lend 200 rubles per soul, at a given interest and time, to every landowner who should deposit his title-deeds with the bank. On a certain day very soon after Tchitchikof's abrupt exit from Nikolsk, a solicitor applies at this bank for a loan of 400,000 rubles on the security of 2000 souls. The title-deeds are examined--found correct; the money is paid; and in a few days afterwards M. Tchitchikof and the money are both out of the jurisdiction of the czar. The time for repayment arrives. The bank hears nothing of M. Tchitchikof. A letter is sent to Nikolsk: no reply. Another of a threatening nature: still no reply. Finally, a special agent is despatched, and finds neither Tchitchikof nor security; but gradually collects the particulars of his visit, as narrated above, and returns to report progress, or no progress, to his superiors. There is nothing for it, one would think, but to write off the 400,000 rubles as a clear loss, and think no more of it. But a paternal government knows better than that. It adjudges that the Nikolskians are virtually accessaries to the fraud; apportions the loan among the sellers of the souls, and compels repayment. So that the Nikolskians have to conclude, in reflecting on M. Tchitchikof, not without acerbity and a certain uncharitableness of spirit, that if he were a friend of his species, he limited _his_ species to himself; and if he were mad, there was a very clear and profitable method in his madness. Meantime the principal actor in this little Russian episode, as the Baron von Rabenstein, captivates the hearts of our English ladies at the ball-room, and empties the pockets of our English gentlemen at the _rouge et noir_ table in the fashionable German watering-place of Lugundtrugbad. And without disparaging his patriotism, or natural love of country, we believe we speak advisedly when we state, that he has not the slightest idea of returning, within anything like a limited period, to the territories of his autocratic majesty. SPELLING-BOOK _VERSUS_ HORN-BOOK.