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 198 never had any feeling for anybody belonging to me. And you were not at your Club: no, I know that. And you were not at any theatre.

"How do I know?

"Ha, Mr. Caudle! I only wish I didn't know. No; you were not at any of these places; but I know well enough where you were.

"Then why do I ask if I know?

"That's it: just to prove what a hypocrite you are: just to show you that you can't deceive me.

"So, Mr. Caudle—you've turned billiard-player, sir.

"Only once?

"That's quite enough: you might as well play a thousand times; for you're a lost man, Caudle. Only once, indeed! I wonder, if I was to say 'Only once,' what would you say to me? But, of course, a man can do no wrong in anything.

"And you're a lord of the creation, Mr. Caudle; and you can stay away from the comforts of your blessed fireside, and the society of your own wife and children—though, to be sure, you never thought anything of them—to push ivory balls about with a long stick upon a green table-cloth. What pleasure any man can take in such stuff must astonish any sensible woman. I pity you, Caudle!

"And you can go and do nothing but make 'cannons'—for that's the gibberish they talk at billiards—when there's the manly and athletic game of cribbage, as my poor grandmother used to call it, at your own hearth. You can go into a billiard-room—you, a respectable tradesman, or as you set yourself up for one, for if the world knew all, there's very little respectability in you—you can go and play billiards with a set of creatures in