"It's a mercy some of the dear children were not drowned; not that
their father would have cared, so long as he could have had his
brandy and cigars. Peter was as near through one of the holes as -

"IT'S NO SUCH THING?

"It's very well for you to say so, but you know what an inquisitive
boy he is, and how he likes to wander among steam-engines. No, I
won't let you sleep. What a man you are! What?

"I'VE SAID THAT BEFORE?

"That's no matter; I'll say it again. Go to sleep, indeed! as if one
could never have a little rational conversation. No, I sha'n't be
too late for the Margate boat in the morning; I can wake up at what
hour I like, and you ought to know that by this time.

"A miserable creature they must have thought me in the ladies' cabin,
with nobody coming down to see how I was.

"YOU CAME A DOZEN TIMES?

"No, Caudle, that won't do. I know better. You never came at all.
Oh, no! cigars and brandy took all your attention. And when I was so
ill, that I didn't know a single thing that was going on about me,
and you never came. Every other woman's husband was there--ha!
twenty times. And what must have been my feelings to hear 'em
tapping at the door, and making all sorts of kind inquiries--
something like husbands and I was left to be ill alone? Yes; and you
want to get me into an argument. You want to know, if I was so ill