off your shirt. If you'd SOME wives, you would, I know. I'm sure
I'm never without a needle and thread in my hand. What with you and
the children, I'm made a perfect slave of. And what's my thanks?
Why, if once in your life a button's off your shirt--what do you cry
'OH' at?--I say once, Mr. Caudle; or twice, or three times, at most.
I'm sure Caudle, no man's buttons in the world are better looked
after than yours. I only wish I had kept the shirts you had when you
were first married! I should like to know where were your buttons
then?

"Yes, it IS worth talking of! But that's how you always try to put
me down. You fly into a rage, and then if I only try to speak you
won't hear me. That's how you men always will have all the talk to
yourselves: a poor woman isn't allowed to get a word in.

"A nice notion you have of a wife, to suppose she's nothing to think
of but her husband's buttons. A pretty notion, indeed, you have of
marriage. Ha! if poor women only knew what they had to go through.
What with buttons, and one thing and another! They'd never tie
themselves up,--no, not to the best man in the world, I'm sure.

"WHAT WOULD THEY DO, MR. CAUDLE?

"Why, do much better without you, I'm certain.

"And it's my belief, after all, that the button wasn't off the shirt;
it's my belief that you pulled it off, that you might have something
to talk about. Oh, you're aggravating enough, when you like, for
anything! All I know is, it's very odd that the button should be off
the shirt; for I'm sure no woman's a greater slave to her husband's