"That's nothing at all to do with it. Ha! I wouldn't have your aggravating temper, Caudle, for mines of gold. It's a good thing I'm not as worrying as you are--or a nice house there'd be between us. I only wish you'd had a wife that WOULD have talked to you! Then you'd have known the difference. But you impose upon me, because, like a poor fool, I say nothing. I should be ashamed of myself, Caudle. "And a pretty example you set as a father! You'll make your boys as bad as yourself. Talking as you did all breakfast time about your buttons! And of a Sunday morning, too! And you call yourself a Christian! I should like to know what your boys will say of you when they grow up? And all about a paltry button off one of your wristbands! A decent man wouldn't have mentioned it. "WHY WON'T I HOLD MY TONGUE? "Because I WON'T hold my tongue. I'm to have my peace of mind destroyed--I'm to be worried into my grave for a miserable shirt button, and I'm to hold my tongue! Oh! but that's just like you men! "But I know what I'll do for the future. Every button you have may drop off, and I won't so much as put a thread to 'em. And I should like to know what you'll do then? Oh, you must get somebody else to sew 'em, must you? That's a pretty threat for a husband to hold out to a wife! And to such a wife as I've been, too: such a negro-slave to your buttons, as I may say! Somebody else to sew 'em, eh? No, Caudle, no: not while I'm alive! When I'm dead--and with what I have to bear there's no knowing how soon that may be--when I'm dead, I say--oh! what a brute you must be to snore so! "YOU'RE NOT SNORING? "Ha! that's what you always say; but that's nothing to do with it. You must get somebody else to sew 'em, must you? Ha! I shouldn't wonder. Oh no! I should be surprised at nothing, now! Nothing at all! It's what people have always told me it would come to,--and now the buttons have opened my eyes! But the whole world shall know of your cruelty, Mr. Caudle. After the wife I've been to you. Somebody else, indeed, to sew your buttons! I'm no longer to be mistress in my own house! Ha, Caudle! I wouldn't have upon my conscience what you have, for the world! I wouldn't treat anybody as you treat--no, I'm not mad! It's you, Mr. Caudle, who are mad, or bad--and that's worse! I can't even so much as speak of a shirt button, but that I'm threatened to be made nobody of in my own house! Caudle, you've a heart like a hearth-stone, you have! To threaten me, and only because a button--a button--" "I was conscious of no more than this," says Caudle; "for here nature relieved me with a sweet, deep sleep." LECTURE XI--MRS. CAUDLE SUGGESTS THAT HER DEAR MOTHER SHOULD "COME AND LIVE WITH THEM."