then I shouldn't wonder if you'd have soup; turtle, no doubt: then
you'd go for a dessert; and--oh! I see it all as plain as the quilt
before me--but no, not while I'm alive! What your second wife may do
I don't know; perhaps SHE'LL be a fine lady; but you sha'n't be
ruined by me, Mr. Caudle; that I'm determined. Puddings, indeed!
Pu-dding-s! Pud--"


"Exhausted nature," says Caudle, "could hold out no longer. She went
to sleep."



LECTURE VIII--CAUDLE HAS BEEN MADE A MASON--MRS. CAUDLE INDIGNANT AND
CURIOUS



"Now, Mr. Caudle--Mr. Caudle, I say: oh: you can't be asleep
already, I know now, what I mean to say is this; there's no use, none
at all, in our having any disturbance about the matter; but, at last
my mind's made up, Mr. Caudle; I shall leave you. Either I know all
you've been doing to-night, or to-morrow morning I quit the house.
No, no; there's an end of the marriage state, I think--an end of all
confidence between man and wife--if a husband's to have secrets and
keep 'em all to himself. Pretty secrets they must be, when his own
wife can't know 'em! Not fit for any decent person to know, I'm
sure, if that's the case. Now, Caudle, don't let us quarrel, there's
a good soul, tell me what it's all about? A pack of nonsense, I dare
say; still--not that I care much about it,--still I SHOULD like to