Yes, it is worth talking of! But that's how you always try to put me down. You fly into a rage, and then, if I only try to speak, you won't hear me. That's how you men always will have all the talk to yourselves: a poor woman isn't allowed to get a word in. A nice notion you have of a wife, to suppose she's nothing to think of but her husband's buttons. A pretty notion, indeed, you have of marriage. Ha! if poor women only knew what they had to go through! What with buttons--and one thing and another! They'd never tie themselves up to the best man in the world, I'm sure. What would they do, Mr. Caudle?--Why, do much better without you, I'm certain. And it's my belief, after all, that the button wasn't off the shirt; it's my belief that you pulled it off, that you might have something to talk about. Oh, you're aggravating enough, when you like, for anything. All I know is, it's very odd that the button should be off the shirt; for I'm sure no woman's a greater slave to her husband's buttons than I am. I only say it's very odd. However, there's one comfort; it can't last long. I'm worn to death with your temper, and sha'n't trouble you a great while. Ha, you may laugh! And I daresay you would laugh! I've no doubt of it! That's your love; that's your feeling! I know that I'm sinking every day, though I say nothing about it. And when I'm gone, we shall see how your second wife will look after your buttons! You'll find out the difference, then. Yes, Caudle, you'll think of me, then; for then, I hope, you'll never have a blessed button to your back. DOUGLAS JERROLD. _JIM BLUDSO._ Wall, no! I can't tell where he lives, Because he don't live, you see: Leastways, he's got out of the habit Of livin' like you and me. Whar have you been for the last three years, That you haven't heard folks tell How Jimmy Bludso passed in his checks, The night of the "Prairie Belle"? He warn't no saint--them engineers Is all pretty much alike-- One wife in Natchez-under-the-Hill, And another one here, in Pike. A careless man in his talk was Jim, And an awkward man in a row-- But he never pinked, and he never lied, I reckon he never knowed how. And this was all the religion he had-- To treat his engine well; Never be passed on the river; To mind the pilot's bell; And if ever the _Prairie Belle_ took fire, A thousand times he swore He'd hold her nozzle agin the bank Till the last soul got ashore. All boats has their day on the Mississip'. And her day came at last-- The _Movastar_ was a better boat, But the _Belle_, she wouldn't be passed, And so came tearin' along that night, The oldest craft on the line, With a nigger squat on her safety-valve, And her furnaces crammed, rosin and pine.