"FOR THE LOVE OF MERCY LET YOU SLEEP?

"Mercy, indeed! I wish you could show a little of it to other
people. Oh yes, I DO know what mercy means; but that's no reason I
should go shopping a bit earlier than I do--and I won't. No; you've
preached this over to me again and again; you've made me go to
meetings to hear about it: but that's no reason women shouldn't shop
just as late as they choose. It's all very fine, as I say, for you
men to talk to us at meetings, where, of course, we smile and all
that--and sometimes shake our white pocket-handkerchiefs--and where
you say we have the power of early hours in our own hands. To be
sure we have; and we mean to keep it. That is, I do. You'll never
catch me shopping till the very last thing; and--as a matter of
principle--I'll always go to the shop that keeps open latest. It
does the young men good to keep 'em close to business. Improve their
minds indeed! Let 'em out at seven, and they'd improve nothing but
their billiards. Besides, if they want to improve themselves, can't
they get up, this fine weather, at three? Where there's a will,
there's a way, Mr. Caudle."


"I thought," writes Caudle, "that she had gone to sleep. In this
hope, I was dozing off when she jogged me, and thus declared herself:
'Caudle, you want nightcaps; but see if I budge to buy 'em till nine
at night!"



LECTURE XXIII--MRS. CAUDLE "WISHES TO KNOW IF THEY'RE GOING TO THE
SEA-SIDE, OR NOT, THIS SUMMER--THAT'S ALL"