HOW A SAILOR RODE WITH THE CZAR.

A FORECASTLE YARN.

BY DAVID KER.

"The queerest scrape as ever I got into," said old Jack Hawkins, "was when I was quite a young chap, makin' my fourth voyage to Rooshia. That's a queer place, mates, if you like! and the lingo's as queer as the country. I'd larned to talk it a bit by the time I'm tellin' on, for one of our crew was a Rooshian, and I picked it up from him. But I tell ye, 'twas as tough a job as shapin' yer course in a fog, with no sun to take a hobservation by. When you want to say 'Thank you,' you've got to sing out 'Blackguard are you,' which don't sound purlite nohow. Then they call a speech a 'wretch,' and a visitor a 'ghost' (the last sort o' visitor I should like), and instead of 'Indeed!' they say 'Sam Daly'; and some o' their own names are things like 'Comb-his-hair-off,' and 'Blow-my-nose-off.'[2]

"Altogether it's a queer, twistified kind o' lingo, jist what you might expect from foreign lubbers. What riled me most when I fust went over was that everybody kep' on callin' me a mattrass, and I'd punched two or three fellers' heads for it afore I found out that 'mattrass' [matross] is their word for a sailor. Jist think o' that, now!

"I can remember as well as if 'twas only yesterday what an outlandish place St. Petersburg seemed when I fust set foot in it. Coachmen in blue frocks and red sashes, nurses with pasteboard crowns on, church towers plated with gold, policemen with swords by their sides, house porters rigged out in sheep-skin, wooden houses painted green and yeller—fact, there was no end to the queer sights all about. And when I got to know their talk a bit, it seemed quite as outlandish to hear 'em call each other 'John the son of Peter,' or 'Paul the son of James,' 'stead o' handlin' one another's names ship-shape.

"And then, again, talk o' bein' thick! why, this here plank 'ud be a joke to 'em. If one of our frigates was to be stuck all over with Rooshians' heads, she wouldn't want no armor-platin'! Now I'll jist tell yer a thing as I seed with my own eyes, and you can believe it or not, as you like. One day when we was a-lying in the river alongside o' the Ostroff Quay, our old man calls up a Rooshian lad that used to do odd jobs for him, and gives him two twenty-kopeck pieces (which are much the same as an English sixpence, or a 'Merican dime), tellin' him one on 'em's to go for bread, and t'other for 'baccy—which was all plain sailing enough, one would think.

"Well, away goes Dmitri, and doesn't come back. So then the old man he sings out for me, and he says, 'Hawkins,' says he, 'just go and see what's gone with Dmitri. I'll be bound the young dog has made a mess of that job.'

"So off I goes to the shop where we used to buy our things, and right at the very door I comes upon Mr. Dmitri, scratchin' his head, and lookin' as if he'd clean lost what few wits he ever had.

"Says I to him, 'Hollo, mate, what's up?'

"Says he, 'What ever am I to do? I've gone and mixed the two pieces, and now I don't know which was the one for the bread, and which was the one for the 'baccy.'[3]

"But I must coil up the slack o' my yarn, or I'll never git it all in; so now to tell yer 'bout that scrape o' mine.

"Right on the river-bank, near the Hadmiralty Building, there's a stattey of Peter the Great, put up by the Hempress Catherine 'bout a hundred years ago; and a real grand affair it is—for Rooshia. It stands on a big block o' gray granite, as was dragged all the way from Finland o' purpose. Peter's on a rearin' horse, pointin' across the river to where he fust began buildin' the town; and there's a sarpent crumpled up under his horse's feet, in sign of his ridin' the high horse over the heathenish ways o' the country.

"Well, I was passin' this stattey one night, comin' back from a jollification with some o' my chums, when (I don't know how it was) it came into my head all to once what a joke it 'ud be to climb up and sit upon the horse. So I scrambles over the railin', and up I goes.

"It was no easy job climbin' over the slippery granite, I can tell yer; but presently I got hold o' the sarpent's tail, and then o' the horse's, and worked my way up as if I was climbin' the shrouds. The horse's hind-quarters was a ticklish bit, but I managed it somehow, and there I sat, cheek by jowl with old Peter, as snug as you please.

"But it warn't quite so snug in another minute or two; for a cold wind came sweepin' up from the river, and with that and the cold metal I was sittin' on, my very teeth rattled in my head. Time to be gittin' down agin, thinks I.

"Jist then I diskivered that 'git down' was easier said nor done. I couldn't turn round, and I couldn't see where to put my feet without it; and as for slidin' down at haphazard, 'tain't likely I'd try that, with a five-and-twenty foot fall 'tween me and the pavement. Fact, I was in a regular fix; and afore I could make up my mind what to do, I heerd the tramp of a police patrol. Jist as they passed one fellow shouted, 'Hollo!' and they all stopped. I kept mum, hopin' they hadn't seen me; when what must I do but give a sneeze fit to wake the whole town!

"'I thought so,' cries the chap. 'Come down, you fellow, come down directly.'

"'All very fine sayin' come down,' says I, 'but how the dickens am I to do it?'

"'He must be an Englishman,' says one. 'Ivan, go for a ladder.'

"The ladder came, and up scrambled two fellows, and hauled me down like a sack o' flour. I was too numbed by this time to show fight, even if it had been any good; so the fellers jist marched me straight off to the watch-house, and locked me up for the night.

"Next mornin' I was had up afore the Judge; and when the old chap sees me, he says, with a grin, 'Aha! Angliski matross' [an English sailor], as if that was quite enough to account for whatever I might have done. When he'd heard the charge he axed if I spoke Rooshian, and finding I did, arter a fashion, he told me to spin my yarn. So I paid it out pretty much as you have it now.

"At every word I said the old fellow rubbed his hands and chuckled like anythin'; and the minute I'd done, he jist lay back in his chair, and laughed as if he'd bust all to bits.

"'Well,' says he, wipin' his eyes, 'that's the best story I've heard this year, or my name's not Phillipoff. But you really must not play such tricks here, my man; so I'll fine you five rubles [$3.75], and mind you don't do it again.'

"'Five rubles!' says I; 'that's a pretty high fare for a ten minutes' ride.'

"'Can't be helped,' says he: 'if you will ride with the Czar, you must expect to pay first-class fare.'

"'All right,' says I, 'here's the money; but the next time I ride with the Czar I'll git out afore they come round for the tickets.'"