At our entrance they paused momentarily from their labour of love, and favoured us with grins which seemed to say, "What confounded idiots you are to come here." One lady of angular aspect, and with hair of the corkscrew type of architecture, smiled affably, however, and, reassured by her complacency, we seated ourselves at her end of the table. The gentlemen, who, with three exceptions, sat in their shirt sleeves, were too deeply engrossed in the work before them to converse, and the clatter of knives and forks was for some time the only sound heard. We sat gazing at the scene, until a husky voice from behind demanded "Chops or 'am and eggs!" and recalled to our minds the object of our visit. Having decided in favour of chops, some black cindery looking bits of meat and bone were placed before us--resembling the delicious grilled chops of the London chop-house about as nearly as a bushman's stew resembles a _vol-au-vent â la financière_. I managed to stay the pangs of hunger with the assistance of some hunches of stale bread, plates of which were ranged at intervals down the centre of the table. My poor wife, however, could scarcely eat anything. As soon as we decently could, for the coatless gentry were still at work, we retired to our rooms, both wife and self depressed in spirits, Mary Ann sulky, and the children in a state of subdued mutiny. "We will get out of this wretched hole to-morrow, so cheer up, dear," I exclaimed to my wife after a prolonged silence. "It's past seven o'clock now, and if you don't want me, I'll take a stroll down the town, and get something for supper." Off I went, and soon reached Queen Street, the principal thoroughfare of the town, which, to my great surprise, I found in semi-darkness, the only places lighted up being the hotels and tobacconists' shops. "No chance of getting anything for supper here," I thought, as I turned up a street which I concluded must lead back to H---- Street. I had not proceeded more than three hundred yards when I espied to my great joy a small shop with a blaze of light in the window, above which shone forth the legend "Oyster Saloon." With quickened step I approached, and peering in, beheld a remarkably neatly dressed and pretty young lady standing behind a little counter, and apparently fully occupied in doing nothing. On the counter stood some pickle bottles filled with extremely unpleasing-looking objects resembling large white slugs, while a heap of oysters with curiously corrugated shells were piled in one corner. Entering the establishment, I requested in polite terms to be informed the price of oysters. "A bob a bottle!" replied the ministering angel behind the counter. "A bob a bottle!" I repeated. "May I ask if that's colonial for a shilling a dozen?"