Belpher, in addition to all the advantages of the usual village,
has a quiet charm all its own, due to the fact that it has seen
better days. In a sense, it is a ruin, and ruins are always
soothing to the bruised soul. Ten years before, Belpher had been a
flourishing centre of the South of England oyster trade. It is
situated by the shore, where Hayling Island, lying athwart the
mouth of the bay, forms the waters into a sort of brackish lagoon,
in much the same way as Fire Island shuts off the Great South Bay
of Long Island from the waves of the Atlantic. The water of Belpher
Creek is shallow even at high tide, and when the tide runs out it
leaves glistening mud flats, which it is the peculiar taste of the
oyster to prefer to any other habitation. For years Belpher oysters
had been the mainstay of gay supper parties at the Savoy, the
Carlton and Romano's. Dukes doted on them; chorus girls wept if
they were not on the bill of fare. And then, in an evil hour,
somebody discovered that what made the Belpher Oyster so
particularly plump and succulent was the fact that it breakfasted,
lunched and dined almost entirely on the local sewage.
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