"Why, isn't there bathing, and picking up shells; and aren't there the packets, with the donkeys; and the last new novel, whatever it is, to read?--for the only place where I really relish a book is at the sea-side. No; it isn't that I like salt with my reading, Mr. Caudle! I suppose you call that a joke? You might keep your jokes for the daytime, I think. But as I was saying--only you always will interrupt me--the ocean always seems to me to open the mind. I see nothing to laugh at; but you always laugh when I say anything. Sometimes at the sea-side--especially when the tide's down--I feel so happy: quite as if I could cry. "When shall I get the things ready? For next Sunday? "WHAT WILL IT COST? "Oh, there--don't talk of it. No: we won't go. I shall send for the painters to-morrow. What? "I CAN GO AND TAKE THE CHILDREN, AND YOU'LL STAY? "No, sir: you go with me, or I don't stir. I'm not going to be turned loose like a hen with her chickens, and nobody to protect me. So we'll go on Monday? Eh? "WHAT WILL IT COST? "What a man you are! Why, Caudle, I've been reckoning that, with buff slippers and all, we can't well do it under seventy pounds. No; I won't take away the slippers and say fifty. It's seventy pounds and no less. Of course, what's over will be so much saved. Caudle, what a man you are! Well, shall we go on Monday? What do you say - "YOU'LL SEE? "There's a dear. Then, Monday." "Anything for a chance of peace," writes Caudle. "I consented to the trip, for I thought I might sleep better in a change of bed." LECTURE XXIV--MRS. CAUDLE DWELLS ON CAUDLE'S "CRUEL NEGLECT" OF HER ON BOARD THE "RED ROVER." MRS. CAUDLE SO "ILL WITH THE SEA," THAT THEY PUT UP AT THE DOLPHIN, HERNE BAY. "Caudle, have you looked under the bed? "WHAT FOR? "Bless the man! Why, for thieves, to be sure. Do you suppose I'd sleep in a strange bed without? Don't tell me it's nonsense! I shouldn't sleep a wink all night. Not that you'd care for that; not that you'd--hush! I'm sure I heard somebody. No; it's not a bit like a mouse. Yes; that's like you--laugh. It would be no laughing matter if--I'm sure there IS somebody!--I'm sure there is! "--Yes, Mr. Caudle; now I AM satisfied. Any other man would have got up and looked himself; especially after my sufferings on board that nasty ship. But catch you stirring! Oh, no! You'd let me lie here and be robbed and killed, for what you'd care. Why you're not going to sleep? What do you say? "IT'S THE STRANGE AIR--AND YOU'RE ALWAYS SLEEPY IN A STRANGE AIR? "That shows the feelings you have, after what I've gone through. And yawning, too, in that brutal manner! Caudle, you've no more heart than that wooden figure in a white petticoat at the front of the ship.