And so they go on, talking and chatting over the affairs of the neighbourhood in succession. It is curious to watch the traits of character exhibited in buyer and seller. Both exceed the bounds of truth and honesty. The one, in his eagerness to sell his goods, bestowing upon them the most unqualified praise; the other depreciating them below their real value, in order to obtain them at an unreasonably low price. "Fine beef, ma'am," exclaims an anxious butcher, watching, with the eye of a hawk, a respectable citizen's wife, as she paces slowly and irresolutely in front of his stall, where he has hung out for sale the side of an ox, neither the youngest nor fattest. "Fine grass-fed beef, ma'am--none better to be had in the district. What shall I send you home--sirloin, ribs, a tender steak?" "It would be a difficult matter to do that," responds the good wife, with some asperity in look and tone. "It seems hard and old; some lean cow you have killed, to save her from dying of the consumption." "No danger of the fat setting fire to the lum"--suggests a rival in the trade. "Here's a fine veal, ma'am, fatted upon the milk of two cows." "Looks," says the comely dame, passing on to the next stall, "as if it had been starved upon the milk of one." Talking of markets puts me in mind of a trick--a wicked trick--but, perhaps, not the less amusing on that account, that was played off in Toronto market last year by a young medical student, name unknown. It was the Christmas week, and the market was adorned with evergreens, and dressed with all possible care. The stalls groaned beneath the weight of good cheer--fish, flesh, and fowl, all contributing their share to tempt the appetite and abstract money from the purse. It was a sight to warm the heart of the most fastidious epicure, and give him the nightmare for the next seven nights, only dreaming of that stupendous quantity of food to be masticated by the jaws of man. One butcher had the supreme felicity of possessing a fine fat heifer, that had taken the prize at the provincial agricultural show; and the monster of fat, which was justly considered the pride of the market, was hung up in the most conspicuous place in order to attract the gaze of all beholders.