_Tickle._ That’s it. You take the cotton and you steeps it in what they call a sirlution of hydrogin and hogsesgin and creamovallygin. _Mrs Nutts._ Dreadful! _Tickle._ And then you dry it; and then it’s prepared. One woman’s blow’d to bits already, and the police is after her husband. I see you haven’t heard about it. Certainly it has been strangely kept out o’ the newspapers. _Mrs Nutts._ Ha! that’s because only men write for the newspapers, Mr Tickle. If it had been the other way; yes, if a poor woman had only killed her husband, we should never have heard the last of it. But of course a wife’s nothing. Go on, Mr Tickle--I’ve made the pudding, Mr Nutts; you needn’t be looking knives and forks at me in that manner.--Go on: the poor soul was blown to bits? _Tickle._ You see, she would go to the play; and because she’d go, her husband wouldn’t. _Mrs Nutts._ Just like the whole sect: go on. _Tickle._ Well, it is supposed from what followed that her husband went unbeknown to her drawers, and---- _Mrs Nutts._ What! She never kept ’em locked? Well, perhaps it’s wrong for one woman to say it of another; but after that, whatever she suffered, it served her right. Not lock her drawers! Well, I have been married to Nutts these seventeen years, and---- _Nutts._ And I’m as well as could be expected after it. Proceed, Mr Tickle. _Tickle._ Went unbeknown to her drawers, and got the poor woman’s cotton gown, and steeped it in all the gins I’ve said: and squeezed it; and dried it; and put it back again. Well, the poor soul dressed herself, thinking nothing of the villany of her husband---- _Mrs Nutts._ Jest like us; and fools we are for our pains. _Tickle._ And went away to go to the Surr’y pit. Mr Macready, the imminent tragedian, was to play, and there was a precious squeezing, you may be sure. Well, the doomed ’oman, with the gun-cotton gown upon her---- _Mrs Nutts._ Dear soul! But she ought to have locked her drawers. _Tickle._ With the gun-cotton gown upon her, was standing in the middle of the crowd. Well, when the doors was opened there was a general rush and crush--a bang was heard--the people screamed--the cotton gown had exploded---- _Mrs Nutts._ And the dear woman? _Tickle._ A little white smoke went slowly over the heads o’ the mob, and that was all that was ever seen of her. _Mrs Nutts._ Well, what’s gone can’t be brought back; but it’s a blessed comfort to think of, they’ll hang the husband when they catch him. _Peabody._ They can’t, ma’am. By the law of England, Mrs Nutts, they can do nothing to the man.