Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/199

 Rh with 'em. Delicate health comes with money: I'm sure of it. What a colour you had once, when you'd hardly a sixpence; and now, look at you!

"'Twould add thirty years to your life—and think what a blessing that would be to me; not that I shall live a tenth part of the time—thirty years, if you'd take a nice little house somewhere at Brixton.

"You hate Brixton?

"I must say it, Caudle, that's so like you: any place that's really genteel you can't abide. Now Brixton and Baalam Hill I think delightful. So select! There, nobody visits nobody, unless they're somebody. To say nothing of the delightful pews that make the churches so respectable!

"However, do as you like. If you won't go to Brixton, what do you say to Clapham Common? Oh, that's a very fine story! Never tell me! No; you wouldn't be left alone, a Robinson Crusoe with wife and children, because you're in the retail way. What?

"The retired wholesales never visit the retired retails at Clapham?

"Ha! that's only your old sneering at the world, Mr. Caudle; but I don't believe it. And after all, people should keep to their station, or what was this life made for? Suppose a tallow-merchant does keep himself above a tallow-chandler,—I call it only a proper pride. What?

"You call it the aristocracy of fat?

"I don't know what you mean by 'aristocracy'; but I suppose it's only another of your dictionary words, that's hardly worth the finding out.

"What do you say to Hornsey or Muswell Hill? Eh?

"Too high?