Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/200

 164 "What a man you are! Well, then—Battersea?

"Too low?

"You're an aggravating creature, Caudle, you must own that! Hampstead, then?

"Too cold?

"Nonsense; it would brace you up like a drum,—Caudle; and that's what you want. But you don't deserve anybody to think of your health or your comforts either. There's some pretty spots, I'm told, about Fulham. Now, Caudle, I won't have you say a word against Fulham. That must be a sweet place: dry and healthy, and every comfort of life about it—else is it likely that a bishop would live there? Now, Caudle, none of your heathen principles—I won't hear 'em. I think what satisfies a bishop ought to content you; but the politics you learn at that club are dreadful. To hear you talk of bishops—well, I only hope nothing will happen to you, for the sake of the dear children!

"A nice little house and a garden! I know it—I was born for a garden! There's something about it makes one feel so innocent. My heart somehow always opens and shuts at roses. And then what nice currant wine we could make! And again, get 'em as fresh as you will, there's no radishes like your own radishes! They're ten times as sweet! What?

"And twenty times as dear?

"Yes; there you go! Anything that I fancy, you always bring up the expense.

"No, Mr. Caudle, I should not be tired of it in a month. I tell you I was made for the country. But here you've kept me—and much you've cared about my health—here you've kept me in this filthy London, that I hardly know what grass is made of. Much you care