the whole system's a trick. No: I'M NOT A STONY-HEARTED CREATURE:
and you ought to be ashamed to say so of your wife and the mother of
your children,--but you'll not make me cry to-night, I can tell you--
I was going to say that--oh! you're such an aggravating man I don't
know what I was going to say!

"THANK HEAVEN?

"What for? I don't see that there's anything to thank Heaven about!
I was going to say, I know the trick of public dinners. They get a
lord, or a duke, if they can catch him--anything to make people say
they dined with nobility, that's it--yes, they get one of these
people, with a star perhaps in his coat, to take the chair--and to
talk all sorts of sugar-plum things about charity--and to make
foolish men, with wine in 'em, feel that they've no end of money; and
then--shutting their eyes to their wives and families at home--all
the while that their own faces are red and flushed like poppies, and
they think to-morrow will never come--then they get 'em to put their
hand to paper. Then they make 'em pull out their cheques. But I
took your book, Mr. Caudle--you couldn't do it a second time. What
are you laughing at?

"NOTHING?

"It's no matter: I shall see it in the paper to-morrow; for if you
gave anything, you were too proud to hide it. I know YOUR charity.

"WHERE'S YOUR WATCH?

"Haven't I told you fifty times where it is? In the pocket--over