At this time of the year (January)
they are very hard to come by, and I have long since invented a sick
wife who has implored me to get a few eggs laid not earlier than the
self-same morning. Of late, as I am getting older, it has become my
daughter, who has just had a little baby. This will generally draw a
new-laid egg, if there is one about the place at all.
At Harrow Weald it has always been my wife who for years has been a
great sufferer and finds a really new-laid egg the one thing she can
digest in the way of solid food. So I turned her on as movingly as I
could not long since, and was at last sold some eggs that were no
better than common shop-eggs, if so good. Next time I went I said my
poor wife had been made seriously ill by them; it was no good trying to
deceive her; she could tell a new-laid egg from a bad one as well as any
woman in London, and she had such a high temper that it was very
unpleasant for me when she found herself disappointed.
"Ah! sir," said the landlady, "but you would not like to lose her."
"Ma'am," I replied, "I must not allow my thoughts to wander in that
direction. But it's no use bringing her stale eggs, anyhow."
SNAPSHOTTING A BISHOP
[Sidenote: _Samuel Butler_]
I must some day write about how I hunted the late Bishop of Carlisle
with my camera, hoping to shoot him when he was sea-sick crossing from
Calais to Dover, and how St.
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