“Ha! Mr. Caudle, it’s you that ought to ask for that: I’m safe enough, I am: it’s you who should ask to be forgiven.
“No, I wouldn’t slander a saint - and I didn’t take away the girl’s character for nothing. I know she brought an action for what I said; and I know you had to pay damages for what you call my tongue - I well remember all that. And serve you right; if you hadn’t laughed at her, it wouldn’t have happened. But if you will make free with such people, of course you’re sure to suffer for it. ’Twould have served you right if the lawyer’s bill had been double. Damages, indeed! Not that anybody’s tongue could have damaged her!
“And now, Mr. Caudle, you’re the same man you were ten years ago. What?
“You hope so?
“The more shame for you. At your time of life, with all your children growing up about you, to -
“What am I talking of?
“I know very well; and so would you, if you had any conscience, which you haven’t. When I say I shall discharge Kitty, you say she’s a very good servant, and I sha’n’t get a better. But I know why you think her good; you think her pretty, and that’s enough for you; as if girls who work for their bread have any business to be pretty, - which she isn’t. Pretty servants, indeed! going mincing about with their fal-lal faces, as if even the flies would spoil ’em. But I know what a bad man you are - now, it’s no use your denying it; for didn’t I overhear you talking to Mr. Prettyman, and didn’t you say that you couldn’t bear to have ugly servants about you? I ask you, - didn’t you say that?
“Perhaps you did?
“You don’t blush to confess it? If your principles, Mr. Caudle, aren’t enough to make a woman’s blood run cold!
“Oh, yes! you’ve talked that stuff again and again; and once I might have believed it; but I know a little more of you now. You like to see pretty servants, just as you like to see pretty statues, and pretty pictures, and pretty flowers, and anything in nature that’s pretty, just, as you say, for the eye to feed upon. Yes; I know your eyes, - very well. I know what they were ten years ago; for shall I ever forget that glass of wine when little Jack was in arms? I don’t care if it was a thousand years ago, it’s as fresh as yesterday, and I never will cease to talk of it. When you know me, how can you ask it?