This proposition being dismissed as impracticable,--first, by reason of the notorious unwillingness of the turtles to be caught, and, waiving that objection, because of the length of time it would take to achieve any passable imitation of the aldermanic dainty,--I was moved to an _aside_-declaration to the effect that my slight observation of the tastes of British tourists in the Federal States led to the suggestion of _oysters_ as delicacies not wholly unlikely to find favor with their eminent guest. An explosion of impulsive gratitude responded to the hint. There was a new "saloon" just opened in Main Street,--Betty should stop there and leave a generous order. Well! it was some time before we were summoned to our amended dinner; but, when we did get it, it was a dinner worth waiting for. Sir Joseph Barley--Heaven bless him!--knew nothing of that smattering of Cosmos into which we hungry New-Englanders are wont to thrust our wits. He bluntly declared that he had never heard of Detached Vitalized Electricity, Woman's Rights, or Harmonial Development; also, he was delightfully confident that--he, Sir Joseph Barley, British subject, _not_ having heard of them--they could not, by any possibility, be worth hearing about. Moreover, he had not read a word of Carlyle, and positively did not know of the existence of any English poet called Browning. Dr. Burge, he thoughtfully suggested, had probably mistaken the name; it was Byron, or possibly Bulwer, about whom he wished to inquire. The former of these personages was a British Peer, and a writer of some celebrity; he was, however, no longer living, having never recovered from a fever he took at a place called Missolonghi, in Greece;--the latter had written a book entitled "Pelham," once popular, but now thought inferior to a series of romances known in Great Britain as the "Waverley Novels"; these were the work of one Scott, a native of Edinburgh, whom George IV. honored with a baronetcy,--a splendid recompense for his great literary industry.