THE OTSTEE. 19 



Of the quantity of oysters consumed in London we 

 cannot give even an approximate guess. It must 

 amount to millions of bushels. Fancy, if you can, also, 

 that curiously courteous exchange which goes on every 

 Christmas between our oyster-eating country cousins 

 and our turkey and goose-loving Londoners. To the 

 man 



" Who hath been long in city pent, 

 'Tis very sweet to gaze upon the fair 

 And open brow of heaven ; — to breathe a prayer 

 Full in the face of the blue firmament" — 



sings John Keats. Oh, if he had been but an oyster- 

 eater, that article from the '' Quarterly," savage and 

 slaughterly, would not have killed him ; but it is also 

 very sweet to gaze upon a turkey, a leash of birds, a 

 brace of pheasants, and, as Mrs. Tibbetts hath it, "a. 

 real country hare." Such a present is promptly repaid 

 by a fine cod packed in ice, and two barrels of oysters. 

 How sweet are these when eaten at a country home, 

 and opened by yourselves, the barrel being paraded on 

 the table with its top knocked out, and with the 

 whitest of napkins round it, as we shall presently have 

 occasion to show. How sweet it is, too, to open 

 some of the dear natives for your pretty cousin, and 

 to see her open her sweet little mouth about as wide as 

 Lesbia's sparrow did for his lump of — not sugar, it was 

 not then invented — but lump of honey ! How sweet it 

 is, after the young lady has swallowed her half dozen, 

 to help yourself ! The oyster never tastes sweeter than 

 when thus operated on by youi^self, so that you do not 

 ''job" the knife into your hand! True labour has a 



