102 LIBERT? AND A LIVING. 



have experimented and escaped. The proba- 

 bility is, that people who eat crabs with vinegar 

 and other rich sauces ought not to drink milk 

 at the same time. 



How to handle a crab is a subject better 

 taught by actual experience than by directions. 

 It is not so difficult a matter as most people 

 suppose, and the ladies who would no sooner 

 meet a crab than some terrible beast of prey 

 say a mouse are all wrong. I have known a 

 whole earful of people utterly demoralized by 

 a few poor timid little crabs. During the sum- 

 mer some friends who went crabbing with me 

 one day wanted to take a few fine specimens to 

 New York. I packed them carefully in a bas- 

 ket, with sea-weed below and on top, and over 

 all I tied a newspaper. It was dark when my 

 friend and his wife reached the railway. He 

 put the basket under the seat in the car and 

 went to sleep. Just as he was dreaming that 

 he had landed a crab as big as a porpoise, his 

 wife awoke him with a tragic whisper : " Harry, 

 the crabs are out one has just walked over my 

 foot ! " 



The situation was a critical one. The wet 

 sea-weed had weakened the paper covering of 



