"Pancakes, indeed! Pray, Mr. Caudle,--no, it's no use your saying fine words to me to let you go to sleep; I sha'n't!--pray do you know the price of eggs just now? There's not an egg you can trust to under seven and eight a shilling; well, you've only just to reckon up how many eggs--don't lie swearing there at the eggs in that manner, Mr. Caudle; unless you expect the bed to let you fall through. You call yourself a respectable tradesman, I suppose? Ha! I only wish people knew you as well as I do! Swearing at eggs, indeed! But I'm tired of this usage, Mr. Caudle; quite tired of it; and I don't care how soon it's ended! "I'm sure I do nothing but work and labour, and think how to make the most of everything; and this is how I'm rewarded. I should like to see anybody whose joints go further than mine. But if I was to throw away your money into the street, or lay it out in fine feathers on myself, I should be better thought of. The woman who studies her husband and her family is always made a drudge of. It's your fine fal-lal wives who've the best time of it. "What's the use of your lying groaning there in that manner? That won't make me hold my tongue, I can tell you. You think to have it all your own way--but you won't, Mr. Caudle! You can insult my dinner; look like a demon, I may say, at a wholesome piece of cold mutton--ah! the thousands of far better creatures than you are who'd been thankful for that mutton!--and I'm never to speak! But you're mistaken--I will. Your usage of me, Mr. Caudle, is infamous-- unworthy of a man. I only wish people knew you for what you are; but I've told you again and again they shall some day. "Puddings! And now I suppose I shall hear of nothing but puddings! Yes, and I know what it would end in. First, you'd have a pudding every day--oh, I know your extravagance--then you'd go for fish,-- 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