Mrs. Caudle's Curtain LecturesJerrold, Douglas William
General
Mrs. Caudle's Curtain Lectures
Jerrold, Douglas William
English wit and humor; Marriage -- Humor
"Nonsense: to be sure you have--and if not, of course they're to be
had for money. I wonder where Chalkpit's, the milkman's arms, came
from? I suppose you can buy 'em at the same place. He used to drive
a green cart; and now he's got a close yellow carriage, with two
large tortoise-shell cats, with their whiskers as if dipped in cream,
standing on their hind legs upon each door, with a heap of Latin
underneath. You may buy the carriage if you please, Mr. Caudle; but
unless your arms are there, you won't get me to enter it. Never!
I'm not going to look less than Mrs. Chalkpit.
"Besides, if you haven't arms, I'm sure my family have, and a wife's
arms are quite as good as a husband's. I'll write to-morrow to dear
mother, to know what we took for our family arms. What do you say?
What?
"A MANGLE IN A STONE KITCHEN PROPER?
"Mr. Caudle, you're always insulting my family--always: but you
shall not put me out of temper to-night. Still, if you don't like
our arms, find your own. I daresay you could have found 'em fast
enough, if you'd married Miss Prettyman. Well, I will be quiet; and
I won't mention that lady's name. A nice lady she is! I wonder how
much she spends in paint! Now, don't I tell you I won't say a word
more, and yet you will kick about!
"Well, we'll have the carriage and the family arms? No, I don't want
the family legs too. Don't be vulgar, Mr. Caudle. You might,
perhaps, talk in that way before you'd money in the Bank; but it
doesn't at all become you now. The carriage and the family arms!
We've a country house as well as the Chalkpits! and though they
praise their place for a little paradise, I dare say they've quite as
many blackbeetles as we have, and more too. The place quite looks
it!
"Our carriage and our arms! And you know, love, it won't cost much--
next to nothing--to put a gold band about Sam's hat on a Sunday. No:
I don't want a full-blown livery. At least, not just yet. I'm told
that Chalkpits dress their boy on a Sunday like a dragon-fly; and I
don't see why we shouldn't do what we like with our own Sam.
Nevertheless, I'll be content with a gold band, and a bit of pepper-
and-salt. No: I shall not cry out for plush next; certainly not.
But I will have a gold band, and -
"YOU WON'T; AND I KNOW IT?
"Oh yes! that's another of your crotchets, Mr Caudle; like nobody
else--you don't love liveries. I suppose when people buy their
sheets, or their tablecloths, or any other linen, they've a right to
mark what they like upon it, haven't they? Well, then? You buy a
servant, and you mark what you like upon him, and where's the
difference? None, that _I_ can see."
"Finally," says Caudle, "I compromised for a gig; but Sam did not
wear pepper-and-salt and a gold band."
LECTURE XXXI--MRS. CAUDLE COMPLAINS VERY BITTERLY THAT MR. CAUDLE HAS
"BROKEN HER CONFIDENCE."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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