The Prospekt wakes late. It has been up nearly all night, and there is but little inducement to early rising when the sun itself sets such a fashion as nine o'clock for its appearance on the horizon, like a pewter disk, with a well-defined hard rim, when he makes his appearance at all. If we take the Prospekt at different hours, we may gain a fairly comprehensive view of many Russian ways and people, cosmopolitan as the city is. At half-past seven in the morning, the horse-cars, which have been resting since ten o'clock in the evening, make a start, running always in groups of three, stopping only at turnouts. The _dvorniki_ retire from the entrance to the courtyards, where they have been sleeping all night with one eye open, wrapped in their sheepskin coats. A few shabby _izvostchiks_ make their appearance somewhat later, in company with small schoolboys, in their soldierly uniforms, knapsacks of books on back, and convoyed by servants. Earliest of all are the closed carriages of officials, evidently the most lofty in grade, since it was decided, two or three years ago, by one of this class, that his subordinates could not reasonably be expected to arrive at business before ten or eleven o'clock after they had sat up until daylight over their indispensable club _vint_--which is Russian whist. Boots (_muzhiki_) in scarlet cotton blouses, and full trousers of black velveteen, tucked into tall wrinkled boots, dart about to bakery and dairy shop, preparing for their masters' morning "tea." Venders of newspapers congregate at certain spots, and charge for their wares in inverse ratio to the experience of their customers; for regular subscribers receive their papers through the post-office, and, if we are in such unseemly haste as to care for the news before the ten o'clock delivery--or the eleven o'clock, if the postman has not found it convenient otherwise--we must buy on the street, though we live but half a block from the newspaper office, which opens at ten. By noon, every one is awake. The restaurants are full of breakfasters, and Dominique's, which chances to stand on the most crowded stretch of the street, on the sunny north side beloved of promenaders, is dense with officers, cigarette smoke, and characteristic national viands judiciously mingled with those of foreign lands.