"Going to a fair! and I suppose you had your fortune told by the gipsies? You needn't have wasted your money. I'm sure I can tell you your fortune if you go on as you do. Yes, the gaol will be your fortune, Mr. Caudle. And it would be no matter--none at all--if your wife and children didn't suffer with you. "And then you must go riding upon donkeys. "YOU DIDN'T GO RIDING UPON DONKEYS? "Yes; it's very well for you to say so: but I dare say you did. I tell you, Caudle, I know what you are when you're out. I wouldn't trust any of you--you especially, Caudle. "Then you must go in the thick of the fair, and have the girls scratching your coat with rattles! "YOU COULDN'T HELP IT, IF THEY DID SCRATCH YOUR COAT? "Don't tell me; people don't scratch coats unless they're encouraged to do it. And you must go in a swing, too. "YOU DIDN'T GO IN A SWING? "Well, if you didn't it was no fault of yours; you wished to go I've no doubt. "And then you must go into the shows? There,--you don't deny that. You did go into a show. "WHAT OF IT, MR. CAUDLE? "A good deal of it, sir. Nice crowding and squeezing in those shows, I know. Pretty places! And you a married man and the father of a family. No: I won't hold my tongue. It's very well for you to threaten to get up. You're to go to Greenwich Fair, and race up and down the hill, and play at kiss in the ring. Pah! it's disgusting, Mr. Caudle. Oh, I dare say you DID play at it; if you didn't, you'd have liked, and that's just as bad;--and you can go into swings, and shows, and roundabouts. If I was you, I should hide my head under the clothes and be ashamed of myself. "And what is most selfish--most mean of you, Caudle--you can go and enjoy yourself, and never so much as bring home for the poor children a gingerbread nut. Don't tell me that your pocket was picked of a pound of nuts! Nice company you must have been in to have your pocket picked. "But I daresay I shall hear all about it to-morrow. I've no doubt, sir, you were dancing at the Crown and Anchor. I should like to have seen you. No: I'm not making myself ridiculous. It's you that's making yourself ridiculous; and everybody that knows you says so. Everybody knows what I have to put up with from you. "Going to a fair, indeed! At your time--" "Here," says Caudle, "I dozed off hearing confusedly the words--hill- -gipsies--rattles--roundabouts--swings--pink bonnet--nuts." LECTURE X--ON MR. CAUDLE'S SHIRT-BUTTONS "There, Mr. Caudle, I hope you're in a little better temper than you were this morning? There--you needn't begin to whistle: people don't come to bed to whistle. But it's like you. I can't speak, that you don't try to insult me. Once, I used to say you were the best creature living; now you get quite a fiend. "DO LET YOU REST?