"Yes, poor thing! because she's my favourite--that's it. If that cat could only speak--What? "IT ISN'T NECESSARY? "I don't know what you mean, Mr. Caudle: but if that cat could only speak, she'd tell me how she's been cheated. Poor thing! I know where the money's gone to that I left for her milk--I know. Why, what have you got there, Mr. Caudle? A book? What! "IF YOU AREN'T ALLOWED TO SLEEP, YOU'LL READ? "Well, now it is come to something! If that isn't insulting a wife to bring a book to bed, I don't know what wedlock is. But you sha'n't read, Caudle; no, you sha'n't; not while I've strength to get up and put out a candle. "And that's like your feelings! You can think a great deal of trumpery books; yes, you can't think too much of the stuff that's put into print; but for what's real and true about you, why, you've the heart of a stone. I should like to know what that book's about. What! "MILTON'S 'PARADISE LOST'? "I thought some rubbish of the sort--something to insult me. A nice book, I think, to read in bed; and a very respectable person he was who wrote it. "WHAT DO I KNOW OF HIM? "Much more than you think. A very pretty fellow, indeed, with his six wives. What? "HE HADN'T SIX--HE'D ONLY THREE? "That's nothing to do with it; but of course you'll take his part. Poor women! A nice time they had with him, I dare say! And I've no doubt, Mr. Caudle, you'd like to follow Mr. Milton's example; else you wouldn't read the stuff he wrote. But you don't use me as he treated the poor souls who married him. Poets, indeed! I'd make a law against any of 'em having wives, except upon paper; for goodness help the dear creatures tied to them! Like innocent moths lured by a candle! Talking of candles, you don't know that the lamp in the passage is split to bits! I say you don't--do you hear me, Mr. Caudle? Won't you answer? Do you know where you are? What? "IN THE GARDEN OF EDEN? "Are you? Then you've no business there at this time of night." "And saying this," writes Caudle, "she scrambled from the bed and put out the night." LECTURE XXIX--MRS. CAUDLE THINKS "THE TIME HAS COME TO HAVE A COTTAGE OUT OF TOWN" "Oh, Caudle, you ought to have had something nice to-night; for you're not well, love--I know you're not. Ha! that's like you men-- so headstrong! You will have it that nothing ails you; but I can tell, Caudle. The eye of a wife--and such a wife as I've been to you--can at once see whether a husband's well or not. You've been turning like tallow all the week; and what's more, you eat nothing now. It makes me melancholy to see you at a joint. I don't say anything at dinner before the children; but I don't feel the less. No, no; you're not very well; and you're not as strong as a horse. Don't deceive yourself--nothing of the sort. No, and you don't eat as much as ever: and if you do, you don't eat with a relish, I'm sure of that. You can't deceive me there.