“Good luck have thou with thine honour: ride on ----” honest black man; but oh, human nature, human nature! I would not be your nigger for many dollars. More rib-roasting should I receive, I am afraid, than ever Uncle Tom suffered from fierce Legree. I have not dined at His Lordship’s since--I would dine there any day to be sure of the company of the black man--but I have more to say about Beef. ADVENTURES OF A RUSSIAN SOLDIER. I was inscribed as a sergeant of the Séménofski guards at a very early age. I was entrusted to the care of one of my father’s serfs, named Savéliitch. He taught me to read and write, and was very indignant when he learned that a Frenchman was to be conveyed back to the estate with the annual provision of wine and oil from Moscow. “Nobody can say that the child has not been well fed, well combed, and well washed,” murmured old Savéliitch; “why then spend money on a Frenchman, while there are plenty of native servants in the house!” M. Beaupré came and engaged himself to teach me French, German, and all the sciences; but he made me teach him my native language, and taught me many things that did me little good. He was fond of brandy, and was, as I was told, too ardent an admirer of ladies. I remember only that one day, when my respected tutor was lying upon his bed in a hopeless state of drunkenness, and I was cutting up a map of Moscow for a kite, my father entered the room, boxed my ears, and turned moussié out of the house, to the great joy of Savéliitch, and to my sorrow. My education being thus brought to a sudden close, I amused myself until I had completed my sixteenth year, in playing at leap-frog, and watching my mother make her exquisite preparations of honey, when one day my father said to my mother: “Avdotia Vassiliéva, what age is Pétroucha?” “He has just entered his seventeenth year. Pétroucha was born the same year that Nastasia Garasimova lost her eye, and--” “Well, well,” my father replied, “he starts for his regiment to-morrow.” My mother burst into tears, and I jumped for joy. “Don’t forget, André Pétrovitch,” said my mother to my father, who was writing my letter of introduction, “to remember me to Prince B----, and to bid him show every kindness to Pétroucha.” “Pétroucha is not going to St. Petersburg,” my father replied. I was heart-broken. I had dreamed of nothing but St. Petersburg. When my father had finished the letter, he turned to me and said: