Thus meditating I arrive at the top of the ladder. What a smell of paint! They are evidently doing up the palace. Turn along a passage about two feet wide--how that German got through it has puzzled me ever since--and find myself in a magnificent studio, filled with painters, easels, palettes and canvases, and with the smell of paint. That German deceived me. I have come to the wrong place after all. Am just about to apologise and retreat when I perceived a fine old master on the wall. Peeping amongst the painters, easels, palettes, and canvases, perceive other old masters, almost entirely hidden by the various erections of the students. At this moment an official rings a small bell. Ask him if I may be permitted to look at some of the pictures on the walls, if it would not be interfering with the painters. "Certainly, _signore_," says he. And ask him where the Pitti Gallery is. "It is here," says he. What? I have reached it at last! But how can one see anything when the whole place is choked up with these execrable modern copies and the apparatus to support them? However, I will see what I can now that I have got here. Happily the daylight will last for at least another hour. "But," continues the official, as I meditate, "it is now four o'clock. The gallery is closed." A FIRST IMPRESSIONIST. * * * * * JOHN BULL À LA RUSSE. [Illustration] The _Novosti_ and other St. Petersburg papers favour the notion of an Anglo-Russian _entente cordiale_. We shall have to adapt our conversation to our new friends. As thus:-- SCENE _The Strand._ _Enter_ R. _and_ L. _two quondam Cockneys._ Why, there's young WOTATOFF!... I hardly knew you, little pigeon, in that fur shuba! Zzzdrrravstv--I mean, be in good health, Gospodin DROPOWISKY, how do you live on? _What_ do I live on? Why, vodka mostly, now that we've all turned Muscovites. But where are you going, IVAN IVANOVITCH? I'm off to call on the _Punchski_ Redaktor, at 10, Bouverieskaya Ulitsa. Why, so am I! let's hire a droshki. Khoroshó--excuse my sneezing!... Hi, izvostchik, drive us to the _Punchskoye_ Bureau. What's the fare? two roubles? oh, nonsense! you shall have fifty kopeks, and ten more for tea-money! What an improvement those bells are, tinkling in the duga over the horse's neck! Yes, but Bozhe moi! that was a near shave with that runaway troika, down Wellington Street! How lucky it is the politsiya wear swords now to stop the traffic with.... Hullo, the Lyceumski Theatre is closed! Yes, don't you know Gospodin IRVING and Gospozha _Terry_ are on tour? Oh, so they are.... Will you smoke? Here's a papiroska, with a mouthpiece! Thanks, I'll finish my sweetmeats! Well, here we are.... What, the thief of a vanka wants more money? Why, we've only gone a verst! Let's send for an ispravnik, and have him knouted!... Have you got your passport ready?