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104 creature! I know it; I know your habits, Caudle; and—I don't like to say it, but you'd have been little better than a ragamuffin. Nice scrapes you'd have got into, I know, if you hadn't had me for a wife. The trouble I've had to keep you respectable—and what's my thanks? Ha! I only wish you'd had some women!

"But we won't quarrel, Caudle. No; you don't mean anything, I know. We'll have this little dinner, eh? Just a few friends? Now don't say you don't care—that isn't the way to speak to a wife; and especially the wife I've been to you, Caudle. Well, you agree to the dinner, eh? Now, don't grunt, Mr. Caudle, but speak out. You'll keep your wedding-day? What?

"If I let you go to sleep?

"Ha! that's unmanly, Caudle. Can't you say 'Yes,' without anything else? I say—can't you say 'Yes'? There, bless you! I knew you would.

"And now, Caudle, what shall we have for dinner? No—we won't talk of it to-morrow; we'll talk of it now, and then it will be off my mind. I should like something particular—something out of the way— just to show that we thought the day something. I should like—Mr. Caudle, you're not asleep?

"What do I want?

"Why, you know I want to settle about the dinner.

"Have what I like?

"No: as it's your fancy to keep the day, it's only right that I should try to please you. We never had one, Caudle; so what do you think of a haunch of venison? What do you say?

"Mutton will do?

"Ha! that shows what you think of your wife: I