And this was scarcely odd, because
They’d eaten every one.
The kindly regard for the susceptibilities of the oysters is kept up even until the dire dénoûment of the drama. Again we are touched by a fragment by the same author, of which, alas, we shall never know the full purport. It runs thus:—
I passed by his garden and marked, with one eye,
How the owl and the oyster were sharing a pie.
(Cætera desunt.)
Mr. Thomas Hardy did not, I am sure, in the title of his novel, “The Return of the Native,” intend to celebrate the coming of oysters into the dinner menu, but it seems to sum up in a brief and pithy phrase one of the great events of the autumn. The old convention that oysters are only eatable in those months which are spelled with an “r” has, of course, much to be said for it; at any rate, so far as British oysters are concerned.
Abroad it is different, and the parcs aux huîtres at French watering-places give quite excellent oysters in August, and even in July. The huîtres de Marennes, huîtres d’Ostende, and the tiny little green ones are by no means to be despised, although they do not, perhaps, quite come up in lusciousness of flavour to the real Whitstable native.
We are somewhat oyster-spoiled in this country, and particularly in London. We go to Scott’s, Sweeting’s, Driver’s, Hampton’s, Rule’s, or any first-class oyster shops, and we get, as we know we shall get, the very best brand of the very best oyster in the world; fresh, clean, untainted, and uncontaminated, which, after all is said and done, cannot be vouched for in the case of second-rate hotels and caterers.
Whether to drink champagne, Chablis, stout, or nothing with oysters is a nice point which has not as yet been authoritatively decided. Of course, champagne and Chablis go far to assimilate the oyster, but at the same time there are those (and—dare I confess it?—I am amongst the number) who are venturesome enough to assert that the oyster, pure and simple, requires no alcoholic addition. Drink Chablis, or a light hock, after the oyster feast, by all means; but when eating your two or three dozen on the deep shell (always order them on the deep shell) imbibe their own liquor only, and be thankful.