“Mrs. Jericho,” said the husband, bolting himself upright in bed, and looking aside, down upon the face of his unmoved wife—“will you permit me to sleep, now I’ve come to my own bed? I think it particularly hard when a man has been out all the day as I have been, toiling for his wife and family—I say I think it particularly hard”—
“I don’t want to prevent your sleeping, Mr. Jericho. Sleep as long as the sleeping beauty, and I’m sure I should be the last person to attempt to wake you. All I want to ask of you is what I asked in the morning. Nothing more. When shall I have some money?”
“Zounds, woman!”—cried Jericho.
“Don’t call me woman—man!” exclaimed Mrs. Jericho. “Major Pennibacker”—
“He was only a captain,” hiccupped Jericho.
“Major Pennibacker,” reiterated his widow, “a soldier and a gentleman, never called me woman yet. Glorious creature! His sword would rattle in its scabbard if he knew how I was treated.”
“Is this the time,” cried Jericho, a little fiercely, “the time to talk of swords and scabbards, with the sun shining in at the windows? Why can’t you let me go to sleep, and talk at the proper horns? After a man has been toiling and slaving for his wife and family”—
“No doubt. And I wonder how many wives—and how many families—that’s it!” cried Mrs. Jericho, with a strange, cutting significance, that instantly levelled her husband; for Solomon desperately stretched himself in the bed; and lugging the nightcap over his ears, turned round, determined upon plucking up sleep, like poppies, by the roots.
“I’m not to be deceived by your indignation, Mr. Jericho. I know everything, or else where could your money go to? However, as I said, I will no longer be made a cat’s-paw of. For eight years have I been married to you, under what I may call false pretences. People called you the Golden Jericho, or is it likely that I could have forgotten the heroic man who—I feel it—has a slight put upon him in his warrior’s grave, by your being in the nightcap you wear at this moment? However, he forgives me. At least, I trust”—and Mrs. Jericho spoke with a spasm—“I trust he does. It was all for the sake of his precious orphans that I am in the bed I am. Yes, Pennibacker”—and his widow cast up her eyes, as though addressing her first husband, looking down benignly upon her from the tester—“Yes, dear Pennibacker, you know for what I sacrificed the best of wives, and the most disconsolate of widows. I could have wished, like the Hindoo, to be burnt upon the pyre; I was equal to it; I could have rejoiced in it. But I re-married, unwillingly re-married, to sacrifice myself for our children. Yes, Pennibacker”—
“Damn Pennibacker!” cried Jericho.