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Mikhei stuck firmly to his assertion that it was a prime cut from a first-class ox. We discovered the truth later on, in Moscow, when we entered a Tatar horse-butcher's shop ornamented with the picture of a horse, as the law requires out of curiosity, to inquire prices.
Again, we had a disagreement with Mikhei on the subject of the roast beef. More than once it was brought in having a peculiar blackish-crimson hue and stringy grain, with a sweetish flavor, and an odor which was singular but not tainted, and which required imperatively that either we or it should vacate the room instantly.
The tables were turned on me, however, when Mikhei appeared and grinned, as broadly as his not overstrict sense of propriety permitted, at my unparalleled ignorance, while he gave me a lesson in the composition of botvinya. That botvinya was not good, but this edition of it on the banks of the Volga, with sterlet, was delicious.
It took a champagne cork and a cord to conquer the orifice. Among our vulgar experiences at this place were fleas. I remonstrated with Mikhei, our typical waiter from the government of Yaroslavl, which furnishes restaurant garcons in hordes as a regular industry. Mikhei replied airily: "Nitchevo! It is nothing! You will soon learn to like them so much that you cannot do without them."
The horse beef had been provided for the Tatars, who considered it a special dainty, and had been palmed off upon us because it was cheap. I may dismiss the subject of the genial Mikhei here, with the remark that we met him the following summer at the Samson Inn, in Peterhoff, where he served our breakfast with an affectionate solicitude which somewhat alarmed us for his sobriety.
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