In short, there was a division in the church, for and against Mrs Ruggles, and Purkis told his wife in confidence, that he "couldn't see it at all; and if it hadn't been for Pellet--he knowed"--What, he did not say; but he shook and nodded his head a great many times, as he concluded by telling Mrs Purkis that if she had been ruled by him, Mrs Ruggles would never have had the post. "And you'd never have had a decent bit of hot dinner o' Sundays," retorted his lady. "She's a deceitful one, that's what she is," said Mr Purkis; "and she ain't going to meddle and interfere with my dooties; so come now!" "I shouldn't bemean myself to speak to her, if I was you, Joseph," said his wife. "You might just as well have took the place, and gone comfortable to church with me, and come back with me comfortable," said Mr Purkis, ignoring his wife's last remark. "And, as I said before, you never knowing what it was to have hot dinners on Sundays," retorted Mrs Purkis. "No, not if I know it, Joseph. We've been man and wife now turned of thirty year, and never once yet did I give you a cold Sunday-dinner. If I don't know my duty as a wife by this time it's a pity." Mrs Purkis turned very red in the face as she spoke, and, after the fashion of her husband, shook her head and nodded it, till Mr Purkis, who, if he did not make a god of his gastric region, certainly yielded it the deference due to a monarch, owned that there was something in what she said, when her face resumed its natural hue, which was only a warm pink. "But it would have been a deal nicer for some things," said Mr Purkis, who still hung about the subject. "And a deal nastier for other things, Joseph," retorted his wife; "and that makes six of one and half-a-dozen of the other." "Just so, my dear," said Mr Purkis, making his first and last attempt at a joke--"six of one in pounds, and half-a-dozen of the other in shillings--six guineas a year, and what you could have made besides, and a very nice thing too." "And you growling and grumbling because your Sunday-dinner was always cold," said Mrs Purkis, resorting once more to her carnal fortification. "But I don't know, now, but what that would have been better," said the beadle, indulging in a habit which he had learned of a stout alderman and magistrate, who believed in its awe-inspiring qualities, and often tried it on small pickpockets, while Mr Purkis was so pleased with it that he always wore it with his beadle's uniform, and practised it frequently upon Ichabod Gunnis, though with so little effect that the said young gentleman only imitated him as soon as his back was turned, frowning, blowing out his cheeks, and then letting them collapse again. "I don't know, my dear," said Mr Purkis, "but what it would have been better than to have had that woman always pottering about in my church."