German serves as a medium of communication with waiters, shop keepers, and other people of that class.

It is only with isvoshtchiki--the drivers of the little open droshkis which fulfil the function of cabs--that he is obliged to use the native tongue, and with them a very limited vocabulary suffices.

The ordinal numerals and four short, easily-acquired expressions--poshol (go on), na pravo (to the right), na lyevo (to the left), and stoi (stop)--are all that is required.
Whilst I was considering how I could get beyond the sphere of West-European languages, a friend came to my assistance, and suggested that I should go to his estate in the province of Novgorod, where I should find an intelligent, amiable parish priest, quite innocent of any linguistic acquirements.

This proposal I at once adopted, and accordingly found myself one morning at a small station of the Moscow Railway, endeavouring to explain to a peasant in sheep's clothing that I wished to be conveyed to Ivanofka, the village where my future teacher lived.

At that time I still spoke Russian in a very fragmentary and confused way--pretty much as Spanish cows are popularly supposed to speak French.