Politics in an Oyster House, 1848. After their meal, the younger of the two figures, bearded and wearing his top hat indoors, leans across the table, counting arguments off on the fingers of one hand and clasping the newspaper that fuels his opinions in the other. The older man, balding, ruddy-faced, and red-nosed, warmed by the liquor in his half-empty glass, looks out with amusement at the viewer. The booth in which they are seated, with its red privacy curtain pulled aside, creates a shallow proscenium stage for this scene of intergenerational argument. The characters are engaged with the politics of their time.