THE REVOLT OF THE OYSTER
By Don Marquis
Garden City, New York
Doubleday, Page and Company
1922
CONTENTS
DOGS AND BOYS (As told by the dog)
BLOOD WILL TELL (As told by the dog)
BEING A PUBLIC CHARACTER (As told by the dog)
WRITTEN IN BLOOD (As told by the dogs)
THE REVOLT OF THE OYSTER
“Our remote ancestor was probably arboreal.”—Eminent scientist.
From his hut in the tree-top Probably Arboreal looked lazily down a broad vista, still strewn with fallen timber as the result of a whirlwind that had once played havoc in that part of the forest, toward the sea. Beyond the beach of hard white sand the water lay blue and vast and scarcely ruffled by the light morning wind. All the world and his wife were out fishing this fine day. Probably Arboreal could see dozens of people from where he crouched, splashing in the water or moving about the beach; and even hear their cries borne faintly to him on the breeze. They fished, for the most part, with their hands; and when one caught a fish it was his custom to eat it where he caught it, standing in the sea.
In Probably Arboreal's circle, one often bathed and breakfasted simultaneously; if a shark or saurian were too quick for one, one sometimes was breakfasted upon as one bathed.
In the hut next to Probably Arboreal, his neighbour, Slightly Simian, was having an argument with Mrs. Slightly, as usual. And, as usual, it concerned the proper manner of bringing up the children. Probably listened with the bored distaste of a bachelor.
“I will slap his feet every time he picks things up with them!” screamed Slightly Simian's wife, an accredited shrew, in her shrill falsetto..
“It's natural for a child to use his feet that way,” insisted the good-natured