every day? You show a nice example to your children, you do;
complaining, and turning your nose up at a sweet piece of cold
mutton, because there's no pudding! You go a nice way to make 'em
extravagant--teach 'em nice lessons to begin the world with. Do you
know what puddings cost; or do you think they fly in at the window?

"You hate cold mutton. The more shame for you, Mr. Caudle. I'm sure
you've the stomach of a lord, you have. No, sir: I didn't choose to
hash the mutton. It's very easy for you to say hash it; but _I_ know
what a joint loses in hashing: it's a day's dinner the less, if it's
a bit. Yes, I daresay; other people may have puddings with cold
mutton. No doubt of it; and other people become bankrupts. But if
ever you get into the Gazette, it sha'n't be MY fault--no; I'll do my
duty as a wife to you, Mr. Caudle: you shall never have it to say
that it was MY housekeeping that brought you to beggary. No; you may
sulk at the cold meat--ha! I hope you'll never live to want such a
piece of cold mutton as we had to-day! and you may threaten to go to
a tavern to dine; but, with our present means, not a crumb of pudding
do you get from me. You shall have nothing but the cold joint--
nothing as I'm a Christian sinner.

"Yes; there you are, throwing those fowls in my face again! I know
you once brought home a pair of fowls; I know it: and weren't you
mean enough to want to stop 'em out of my week's money? Oh, the
selfishness--the shabbiness of men! They can go out and throw away
pounds upon pounds with a pack of people who laugh at 'em afterwards;
but if it's anything wanted for their own homes, their poor wives may
hunt for it. I wonder you don't blush to name those fowls again! I
wouldn't be so little for the world, Mr. Caudle.