Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/114

 78 "Well, I don't wonder at that, Mr. Caudle? you ought to be ashamed to speak; I don't wonder that you can't open your mouth. I'm only astonished that at such hours you have the confidence to knock at your own door. Though I'm your wife, I must say it, I do sometimes wonder at your impudence. What do you say?

"Nothing?

"Ha! you are an aggravating creature, Caudle; lying there like the mummy of a man, and never as much as opening your lips to one. Just as if your own wife wasn't worth answering! It isn't so when you're out, I'm sure. Oh no! then you can talk fast enough; here, there's no getting a word from you. But you treat your wife as no other man does—and you know it.

"Out—out every night! What?

"You haven't been out this week before?

"That's nothing at all to do with it. You might just as well be out all the week as once—just! And I should like to know what could keep you out till these hours?

"Business?

"Oh, yes—I dare say! Pretty business a married man and the father of a family must have out of doors at one in the morning. What?

"I shall drive you mad?

"Oh, no; you haven't feelings enough to go mad—you'd be a better man, Caudle, if you had.

"Will I listen to you?

"What's the use? Of course you've some story to put me off with—you can all do that, and laugh at us afterwards.

"No, Caudle, don't say that. I'm not always trying to find fault—not I. It's you. I never speak but when