“Bah! That’s the third umbrella gone since Christmas.
“What were you to do?
“Why, let him go home in the rain, to be sure. I’m very certain there was nothing about him that could spoil. Take cold, indeed! He doesn’t look like one of the sort to take cold. Besides, he’d have better taken cold than take our only umbrella. Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear the rain? And as I’m alive, if it isn’t St. Swithin’s day! Do you hear it against the windows? Nonsense; you don’t impose upon me. You can’t be asleep with such a shower as that! Do you hear it, I say? Oh, you do hear it! Well, that’s a pretty flood, I think, to last for six weeks; and no stirring all the time out of the house. Pooh! don’t think me a fool, Mr. Caudle. Don’t insult me. He return the umbrella! Anybody would think you were born yesterday. As if anybody ever did return an umbrella! There - do you hear it! Worse and worse! Cats and dogs, and for six weeks, always six weeks. And no umbrella!
“I should like to know how the children are to go to school to-morrow? They sha’n’t go through such weather, I’m determined. No: they shall stop at home and never learn anything - the blessed creatures! - sooner than go and get wet. And when they grow up, I wonder who they’ll have to thank for knowing nothing - who, indeed, but their father? People who can’t feel for their own children ought never to be fathers.
“But I know why you lent the umbrella. Oh, yes; I know very well. I was going out to tea at dear mother’s to-morrow - you knew that; and you did it on purpose. Don’t tell me; you hate me to go there, and take every mean advantage to hinder me. But don’t you think it, Mr. Caudle. No, sir; if it comes down in buckets-full I’ll go all the more. No: and I won’t have a cab. Where do you think the money’s to come from? You’ve got nice high notions at that club of yours. A cab, indeed! Cost me sixteenpence at least - sixteenpence! two-and-eightpence, for there’s back again. Cabs, indeed! I should like to know who’s to pay for ’em; I can’t pay for ’em, and I’m sure you can’t, if you go on as you do; throwing away your property, and beggaring your children - buying umbrellas!
“Do you hear the rain, Mr. Caudle? I say, do you hear it? But I don’t care - I’ll go to mother’s to-morrow: I will; and what’s more, I’ll walk every step of the way, - and you know that will give me my death. Don’t call me a foolish woman, it’s you that’s the foolish man. You know I can’t wear clogs; and with no umbrella, the wet’s sure to give me a cold - it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I may be laid up for what you care, as I daresay I shall - and a pretty doctor’s bill there’ll be. I hope there will! It will teach you to lend your umbrellas again. I shouldn’t wonder if I caught my death; yes: and that’s what you lent the umbrella for. Of course!
“Nice clothes I shall get too, trapesing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoilt quite.
“Needn’t I wear ’em then?
“Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear ’em. No, sir, I’m not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows! it isn’t often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once, - better, I should say. But when I do go out, - Mr. Caudle, I choose to go like a lady. Oh! that rain - if it isn’t enough to break in the windows.
“Ugh! I do look forward with dread for to-morrow! How I am to go to mother’s I’m sure I can’t tell. But if I die I’ll do it. No, sir; I won’t borrow an umbrella. No; and you sha’n’t buy one. Now, Mr. Caudle, only listen to this: if you bring home another umbrella, I’ll throw it in the street. I’ll have my own umbrella or none at all.