A facetious friend of Dr. Kitchiner’s, on a very wet night, after several messengers, whom he had despatched for a coach, had returned without obtaining one; at last, at “past one o’clock, and a rainy morning,” the wag walked himself to the next coach-stand, and politely advised the waterman to mend his inside lining with a pint of beer, and go home to bed; for said he, “there will be nothing for you to do to night, I’ll lay you a shilling that there’s not a coach out.”  “Why, will you, your honour? then done,” cried Mr. Waterman; “but are you really serious, ’cause, if so be as you be, I must make haste and go and get one.”  Being assured he would certainly touch the twelvepenny if he did, he trotted off on his “nag a ten toes,” and in ten minutes returned with a leathern conveyance.

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Epicure Quin used to say, it was “not safe to sit down to a Turtle Feast at one of the City Halls, without a basket-hilted knife and fork.”—­Another of his quips was, “Of all the banns of marriage I ever heard, none gave me half such pleasure as the union of ANN-CHOVY with good JOHN-DORY.”

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ONION SOUP

Is thought highly restorative by the French.  It is considered peculiarly grateful, and gently stimulating to the stomach, after hard drinking or night-watching, and holds among soups the place that champagne, soda-water, or ginger-beer, does among liquors.

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Lobsters and crabs are in season from March till October; so that they supply the place of oysters, which come in about the time lobsters go out of season.  Lobsters are held in great esteem by gastrologers for the firmness, purity, and flavour of their flesh.  When they find refuge in the rocky fastnesses of the deep from the rapacity of sharks and fishermen, they sometimes attain an immense size, and have been found from eighteen inches to upwards of two feet in length.  Apicius, who ought to be the patron saint of epicures, made a voyage to the coast of Africa on hearing that lobsters of an unusually large size were to be found there, and, after encountering much distress at sea, met with a disappointment.  Very large lobsters are at present found on the coasts of Orkney.  Some naturalists affirm (Olaus Magnus and Gesner,) that in the Indian seas, and on the wild shores of Norway, lobsters have been found twelve feet in length, and six in breadth, which seize mariners in their terrible embrace, and, dragging them into their caverns, devour them.  However this may be, the lobsters and crabs for being devoured are best when of the middle size, and when found on reefs or very rocky shores.

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THE INVISIBLE HAIR.

A monk was showing the relics of his convent before a numerous assembly; the most rare, in his opinion, was a hair of the Holy Virgin, which he appeared to show to the people present, opening his hands as if he were drawing it through them.  A peasant approached with great curiosity, and exclaimed, “but, reverend father, I see nothing.”  “Egad, I believe it” replied the monk, “for I have shown the hair for twenty years, and have not yet beheld it myself.”