Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/157

 Rh isn't so wonderful a person that she isn't to be named? I suppose she's flesh and blood. What?

"You don't know?

"Ha! I don't know that.

"What, Mr. Caudle?

"You'll have a separate room—you'll not be tormented in this manner?

"No, you won't, sir—not while I'm alive. A separate room! And you call yourself a religious man, Mr. Caudle. I'd advise you to take down the Prayer Book, and read over the Marriage Service. A separate room, indeed! Caudle, you're getting quite a heathen. A separate room! Well, the servants would talk then! But no: no man—not the best that ever trod, Caudle—should ever make me look so contemptible.

"I sha'n't go to sleep; and you ought to know me better than to ask me to hold my tongue. Because you come home when I've just stepped out to do a little shopping, you're worse than a fury. I should like to know how many hours I sit up for you? What do you say?

"Nobody wants me to sit up?

"Ha! that's like the gratitude of men—just like 'em! But a poor woman can't leave the house, that—what?

"Why can't I go at reasonable hours?

"Reasonable! What do you call eight o'clock? If I went out at eleven and twelve, as you come home, then you might talk; but seven or eight o'clock—why, it's the cool of the evening; the nicest time to enjoy a walk; and, as I say, do a little bit of shopping. Oh yes, Mr. Caudle, I do think of the people that are kept in the shops just as much as you; but that's nothing at all to do with it. I know what you'd have. You'd have all