Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/175

 Rh followed you; and if you were to go before a magistrate, and take a shilling oath to the contrary, I wouldn't believe you. No, Caudle; I wouldn't.

"Very well, then?

"Ha! what a heart you must have, to say 'very well'; and after the wife I've been to you. I'm to be brought from my own home—dragged down here to the sea-side—to be laughed at before the world—don't tell me. Do you think I didn't see how she looked at you—how she puckered up her farthing mouth—and—what?

"Why did I kiss her, then?

"What's that to do with it? Appearances are one thing, Mr. Caudle; and feelings are another. As if women can't kiss one another without meaning anything by it! And you—I could see you looked as cold and as formal at her as—well, Caudle! I wouldn't be the hypocrite you are for the world!

"There, now; I've heard all that story. I daresay she did come down to join her brother. How very lucky, though, that you should be here! Ha! ha! how very lucky that—ugh! ugh! ugh! and with the cough I've got upon me—oh, you've a heart like a sea-side flint! Yes, that's right. That's just like your humanity.