Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/127

 Rh you would—you'd like to have all the children in their dirt, like potatoes: anything, so that it didn't disturb you. I wish you'd had a wife who never washed—she'd have suited you, she would. Yes; a fine lady who'd have let your children go that you might have scraped 'em. She'd have been much better cared for than I am. I only wish I could let all of you go without clean linen at all—yes, all of you. I wish I could! And if I wasn't a slave to my family, unlike anybody else, I should.

"No, Mr. Caudle; the house isn't tossed about in water as if it was Noah's Ark. And you ought to be ashamed of yourself to talk of Noah's Ark in that loose manner. I'm sure I don't know what I've done to be married to a man of such principles. No: and the whole house doesn't taste of soap-suds either; and if it did, any other man but yourself would be above naming it. I suppose I don't like washing-day any more than yourself. What do you say?

"Yes, I do?

"Ha! you're wrong there, Mr. Caudle. No; I don't like it because it makes everybody else uncomfortable. No; and I ought not to have been born a mermaid, that I might always have been in water. A mermaid, indeed! What next will you call me? But no man, Mr. Caudle, says such things to his wife as you. However, as I've said before, it can't last long, that's one comfort. What do you say?

"You're glad of it?

"You're a brute, Mr. Caudle! No, you didn't mean washing: I know what you mean. A pretty speech to a woman who's been the wife to you I have! You'll repent it when it's too late: yes, I wouldn't have your