Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/181

 Rh was plenty of 'em here. I'd go and be a nun for the rest of my days, and—I see nothing to laugh at, Mr. Caudle; that you should be shaking the bed-things up and down in that way. But you always laugh at people's feelings; I wish you'd only some yourself. I'd be a nun, or a Sister of Charity.

"Impossible?

"Ha! Mr. Caudle, you don't know even now what I can be when my blood's up. You've trod upon the worm long enough; some day won't you be sorry for it!

"Now, none of your profane cryings out! You needn't talk about Heaven in that way: I'm sure you're the last person who ought. What I say is this. Your conduct at the Custom House was shameful—cruel! And in a foreign land, too! But you brought me here that I might be insulted; you'd no other reason for dragging me from England. Ha! let me once get home, Mr. Caudle, and you may wear your tongue out before you get me into outlandish places again.

"What have you done?

"There, now; that's where you're so aggravating. You behave worse than any Turk to me,—what?

"You wish you were a Turk?

"Well, I think that's a pretty wish before your lawful wife! Yes—a nice Turk you'd make, wouldn't you? Don't think it.

"What have you done?

"Well, it's a good thing I can't see you, for I'm sure you must blush. Done, indeed!

"Why, when the brutes searched my basket at the Custom House!

"A regular thing, is it?

"Then if you knew that, why did you bring me here?