BY DAVID KER.
"If you're going out again to-night, my friend, I'd advise you to leave this new fur cap of yours at home, and take your sea cap instead."
So spoke a hospitable Russian merchant to his guest, Captain Cyrus Weatherby, skipper and part owner of the good ship Seabird, of Boston. The Captain had reached St. Petersburg late enough in the fall for it to be already pretty cold at night, and his first exploit on landing was to buy a magnificent fur cap, which, as he said, would "astonish his folks at the Hub some" when he got back.
"What should I leave it at home for?" asked the skipper. "I s'pose I ain't going to be arrested as a Nihilist 'cause I've got a new cap on?"
"No; but if you go out with it, you'll most likely come back without it."
"Somebody going to steal it, eh?"
"Just so, and I'll tell you how. There's a fellow going around here just now who makes a regular trade of snapping up all the good caps he can lay his hands on. He hires a hack carriage, and drives about the streets after dark at a rattling pace, the driver being, of course, a confederate of his own. Then, whenever he passes a man with a high-priced cap on—like yours, for instance—he leans forward and snatches it off,[1] while the driver puts his horse to speed, and is out of sight before there's time to cry, 'Help!'"
"Pretty smart that," growled the Massachusetts man. "I guess I must give that land-shark a wide berth. Whereabouts does he cruise, so as I may keep clear of him?"
"Well, you might meet him in any of the streets near the Isaac Cathedral, but his general place is the Bolshaya Morskaya [Great Marine] Street."
"All right."