Throughout the summer months the pie trade flourishes with unabated vigor. Each successive fruit, as it ripens and comes to market, adds a fresh impetus to the traffic. As autumn waxes every week supplies a new attraction and a delicious variety; as it wanes into winter, a good store of apples are laid up for future use; and so soon as Jack Frost sets his cold toes upon the pavement, the delicate odor of mince-meat assails the passer-by, and reminds him that Christmas is coming, and that the pieman is ready for him. It is only in the early spring that the pie-shop is under a temporary cloud. The apples of the past year are well-nigh gone, and the few that remain have lost their succulence, and are dry and flavorless. This is the precise season when, as the pieman in "Pickwick" too candidly observed, "fruits is out, and cats is in." Now there is an unaccountable prejudice against cats among the pie-devouring population of the metropolis: we are superior to it ourselves, and can therefore afford to mention it dispassionately, and to express our regret that any species of commerce, much more one so grateful to the palate, and so convenient to the purse, should periodically suffer declension through the prevalence of an unfounded prejudice. Certain it is that penny-pie eating does materially decline about the early spring season; and it is certain too, that of late years, about the same season, a succession of fine Tabbies of our own have mysteriously disappeared. Attempts are made with rhubarb to combat the depression of business; but success in this matter is very partial--the generality of consumers being impressed with the popular notion that rhubarb is physic, and that physic is not fruit. But relief is at hand; the showers and sunshine of May bring the gooseberry to market; pies resume their importance; and the pieman backed by an inexhaustible store of a fruit grateful to every English palate, commences the campaign with renewed energy, and bids defiance for the rest of the year to the mutations of fortune. We shall close this sketch with a legend of the day, for the truth of which, however, we do not personally vouch. It was related and received with much gusto at an annual supper lately given by a large pie proprietor to his assembled hands.