What is it called? Sometimes I
imagine the title-page thus:--
OYSTERS
IN
EVERY STYLE
or
OPENINGS
OF
LIFE
by
YOUNG DANDO.
As to the man putting the luggage on his head, as a sort of sign, I
adopt it from this hour.
I date this from London, where I have come, as a good, profligate,
graceless bachelor, for a day or two; leaving my wife and babbies at
the seaside.... Heavens! if you were but here at this minute! A
piece of salmon and a steak are cooking in the kitchen; it's a very
wet day, and I have had a fire lighted; the wine sparkles on a
side-table; the room looks the more snug from being the only
undismantled one in the house; plates are warming for Forster and
Maclise, whose knock I am momentarily expecting; that groom I told
you of, who never comes into the house, except when we are all out
of town, is walking about in his shirt-sleeves without the smallest
consciousness of impropriety; a great mound of proofs are waiting to
be read aloud, after dinner. With what a shout I would clap you down
into the easiest chair, my genial Felton, if you would but appear,
and order you a pair of slippers instantly!
Since I have written this, the aforesaid groom--a very small man (as
the fashion is) with fiery-red hair (as the fashion is _not_)--has
looked very hard at me and fluttered about me at the same time, like
a giant butterfly.
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