Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/129

 Rh "No, it doesn't; never; well, very seldom, and that's the same thing. Can I help it, if the blacks will fly, and the things must be rinsed again? Don't say that; I'm not made happy by the blacks, and they don't prolong my enjoyment; and, more than that, you're an unfeeling man to say so. You're enough to make a woman wish herself in her grave—you are, Caudle.

"And a pretty example you set to your sons! Because we'd a little wash to-day, and there wasn't a hot dinner—and who thinks of getting anything hot for washer-women?—because you hadn't everything as you always have it, you must swear at the cold mutton—and you don't know what that mutton costs a pound, I dare say—you must swear at a sweet, wholesome joint like a lord. What?

"You didn't swear?

"Yes; it's very well for you to say so; but I know when you're swearing; and you swear when you little think it; and I say you must go on swearing as you did, and seize your hat like a savage, and rush out of the house, and go and take your dinner at a tavern! A pretty wife people must think you have, when they find you dining at a public-house.