"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 your head--of course. Can't you hear it tick? No: you can hear nothing to-night. "And now, Mr. Caudle, I should like to know whose hat you've brought home? You went out with a beaver worth three-and-twenty shillings-- the second time you've worn it--and you bring home a thing that no Jew in his senses would give me fivepence for. I couldn't even get a pot of primroses--and you know I always turn your old hats into roots--not a pot of primroses for it. I'm certain of it now--I've often thought it--but now I'm sure that some people dine out only to change their hats. "WHERE'S YOUR WATCH? "Caudle, you're bringing me to an early grave!" WE HOPE THAT CAUDLE WAS PENITENT FOR HIS CONDUCT; INDEED, THERE IS, WE THINK, EVIDENCE THAT HE WAS SO: FOR TO THIS LECTURE HE HAS APPENDED NO COMMENT. THE MAN HAD NOT THE FACE TO DO IT. LECTURE XXI--MR. CAUDLE HAS NOT ACTED "LIKE A HUSBAND" AT THE WEDDING DINNER "Ah, me! It's no use wishing--none at all: but I do wish that yesterday fourteen years could come back again. Little did I think, Mr. Caudle, when you brought me home from church, your lawful wedded wife--little, I say, did I think that I should keep my wedding dinner in the manner I have done to-day. Fourteen years ago! Yes, I see you now, in your blue coat with bright buttons, and your white watered-satin waistcoat, and a moss-rose bud in your button-hole, which you said was like me. What? "YOU NEVER TALKED SUCH NONSENSE? "Ha! Mr. Caudle, you don't know what you talked that day--but I do. Yes; and you then sat at the table as if your face, as I may say, was buttered with happiness, and--What? No, Mr. Caudle, don't say that; _I_ have not wiped the butter off--not I. If you above all men are not happy, you ought to be, gracious knows!