"Ah, my dear brother!" replied the Russian rat, "many stories are still told of the fearful inundation which happened in 1824. Impelled by a furious west wind, the waters then rose to a fearful height, streamed through the streets, floated the carriages, made boats of the carts, nay, lifted some wooden houses right from the ground, and sent them floating about, with all their inhabitants in them, like so many men-of-war! Horses were drowned, and so, alas! were rats in terrible numbers. The trees in the squares were crowded with men, clinging to them like bees when they cluster! It is said that thousands of poor human beings perished, and that the inundation cost the city more than a hundred millions of rubles!" "Well, St. Petersburg is a splendid place!" cried I; "but after all, the merry banks of the Thames, and dear dingy old London for me!" CHAPTER XVI. A RUSSIAN KITCHEN. Under the guidance of Wisky we took up our abode in a Russian house. House did I call it!-- if ever there was a palace this was one. We established ourselves in the kitchen; a warm, comfortable place we found it, where we had much opportunity for observation, both of the denizens of the place and their various occupations. "It seems to me, Wisky," said I, on the night following that of our arrival, "that there is no end to the number of servants that pass in and out of this dwelling! Who is that fellow in the blue cloth caftan, fastened under his left arm with three silver buttons, and girded round the waist with a coloured silk scarf? His fine bushy beard seems to match the fur with which his high four-cornered cap is trimmed." "That is the Tartar coachman," replied Wisky; "a dashing fellow is he, and a bold driver through the crowded streets of the city. The pretty youths yonder are the postilions. Young and small they must be, to suit the taste of a Russian noble. The worse for them, poor boys, as they are less able to endure the bitter cold of a winter's night, when, if they drop asleep on their horses, they are never likely to awake any more!" "And are their masters actually cruel enough," I exclaimed, "to expose them to such suffering and risk?" "My much esteemed brother," replied the Russian rat, "doubtless your clear mind has already come to the conclusion that selfishness is inherent in the human race. A young noble is at a ball; must he quit its bright enchantments, and the society of the fair whom he admires, because a bearded coachman is freezing without? A beauteous lady, wrapped in ermine and velvet, is weeping in the theatre over the woes of some imaginary heroine; would you have her dry her tearful eyes, and leave the scene of touching interest and elegant excitement, because icicles are hanging from the locks of her little postilion, and his head is gradually sinking on his breast, as the fatal sleep steals over him? Selfish!-- yes, all human beings are selfish!"