Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/81

 Rh would have been what I've been to you. I only wish my time was to come over again, that's all; I wouldn't be the fool I have been.

"Going to a fair! and I suppose you had your fortune told by the gipsies? You needn't have wasted your money. I'm sure I can tell you your fortune if you go on as you do. Yes, the gaol will be your fortune, Mr. Caudle. And it would be no matter—none at all—if your wife and children didn't suffer with you.

"And then you must go riding upon donkeys.

"You didn't go riding upon donkeys?

"Yes; it's very well for you to say so: but I dare say you did. I tell you, Caudle, I know what you are when you're out. I wouldn't trust any of you—you especially, Caudle.

"Then you must go in the thick of the fair, and have the girls scratching your coat with rattles!

"You couldn't help it, if they did scratch your coat?

"Don't tell me; people don't scratch coats unless they're encouraged to do it. And you must go in a swing, too.

"You didn't go in a swing?

"Well, if you didn't it was no fault of yours; you wished to go I've no doubt.

"And then you must go into the shows? There,—you don't deny that. You did go into a show.

"What of it, Mr. Caudle?

"A good deal of it, sir. Nice crowding and squeezing in those shows, I know. Pretty places! And you a married man and the father of a family. No: I won't hold my tongue. It's very well for you to threaten to get up. You're to go to Greenwich Fair, and race up and down the hill, and play at kiss in the ring. Pah!