Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/196

 160 "Yes, poor thing! because she's my favourite—that's it. If that cat could only speak—What?

"It isn't necessary?

"I don't know what you mean, Mr. Caudle: but if that cat could only speak, she'd tell me how she's been cheated. Poor thing! I know where the money's gone to that I left for her milk—I know. Why, what have you got there, Mr. Caudle? A book? What!

"If you aren't allowed to sleep, you'll read?

"Well, now it is come to something! If that isn't insulting a wife to bring a book to bed, I don't know what wedlock is. But you sha'n't read, Caudle; no, you sha'n't; not while I've strength to get up and put out a candle.

"And that's like your feelings! You can think a great deal of trumpery books; yes, you can't think too much of the stuff that's put into print; but for what's real and true about you, why, you've the heart of a stone. I should like to know what that book's about. What!

"Milton's 'Paradise Lost'?

"I thought some rubbish of the sort—something to insult me. A nice book, I think, to read in bed; and a very respectable person he was who wrote it.

"What do I know of him?

"Much more than you think. A very pretty fellow, indeed, with his six wives. What?

"He hadn't six—he'd only three?

"That's nothing to do with it; but of course you'll take his part. Poor women! A nice time they had with him, I dare say! And I've no doubt, Mr. Caudle, you'd like to follow Mr. Milton's example; else you wouldn't read the stuff he wrote. But you don't use me as he treated the poor souls who married him.