Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/162

 126 "But all I want to ask you is this: do you intend to go to the sea-side this summer?

"Yes? you'll go to Gravesend?

"Then you'll go alone, that's all I know. Gravesend! You might as well empty a salt-cellar in the New River, and call that the seaside. What?

"It's handy for business?

"There you are again! I can never speak of taking a little enjoyment, but you fling business in my teeth. I'm sure you never let business stand in the way of your own pleasure, Mr. Caudle—not you. It would be all the better for your family if you did.

"You know that Matilda wants sea-bathing; you know it, or ought to know it, by the looks of the child; and yet—I know you, Caudle—you'd have let the summer pass over, and never said a word about the matter. What do you say?

"Margate's so expensive?

"Not at all. I'm sure it will be cheaper for us in the end; for if we don't go, we shall all be ill—every one of us—in the winter. Not that my health is of any consequence: I know that well enough. It never was yet. You know Margate's the only place I can eat a breakfast at, and yet you talk of Gravesend! But what's my eating to you? You wouldn't care if I never ate at all. You never watch my appetite like any other husband, otherwise you'd have seen what it's come to.

"What do you say?

"How much will it cost?

"There you are, Mr. Caudle, with your meanness again. When you want to go yourself to Blackwall or to Greenwich you never ask, how much will it cost? What?