“What’s the use of your lying muttering there about pancakes? Don’t you always have ’em once a year - every Shrove Tuesday? And what would any moderate, decent man want more?
“Pancakes, indeed! Pray, Mr. Caudle, - no, it’s no use your saying fine words to me to let you go to sleep; I sha’n’t! - pray do you know the price of eggs just now? There’s not an egg you can trust to under seven and eight a shilling; well, you’ve only just to reckon up how many eggs - don’t lie swearing there at the eggs in that manner, Mr. Caudle; unless you expect the bed to let you fall through. You call yourself a respectable tradesman, I suppose? Ha! I only wish people knew you as well as I do! Swearing at eggs, indeed! But I’m tired of this usage, Mr. Caudle; quite tired of it; and I don’t care how soon it’s ended!
“I’m sure I do nothing but work and labour, and think how to make the most of everything; and this is how I’m rewarded. I should like to see anybody whose joints go further than mine. But if I was to throw away your money into the street, or lay it out in fine feathers on myself, I should be better thought of. The woman who studies her husband and her family is always made a drudge of. It’s your fine fal-lal wives who’ve the best time of it.
“What’s the use of your lying groaning there in that manner? That won’t make me hold my tongue, I can tell you. You think to have it all your own way - but you won’t, Mr. Caudle! You can insult my dinner; look like a demon, I may say, at a wholesome piece of cold mutton - ah! the thousands of far better creatures than you are who’d been thankful for that mutton! - and I’m never to speak! But you’re mistaken - I will. Your usage of me, Mr. Caudle, is infamous - unworthy of a man. I only wish people knew you for what you are; but I’ve told you again and again they shall some day.
“Puddings! And now I suppose I shall hear of nothing but puddings! Yes, and I know what it would end in. First, you’d have a pudding every day - oh, I know your extravagance - then you’d go for fish, - then I shouldn’t wonder if you’d have soup; turtle, no doubt: then you’d go for a dessert; and - oh! I see it all as plain as the quilt before me - but no, not while I’m alive! What your second wife may do I don’t know; perhaps she’ll be a fine lady; but you sha’n’t be ruined by me, Mr. Caudle; that I’m determined. Puddings, indeed! Pu-dding-s! Pud - ”
“Exhausted nature,” says Caudle, “could hold out no longer. She went to sleep.”
LECTURE VIII - CAUDLE HAS BEEN MADE A MASON - MRS. CAUDLE INDIGNANT AND CURIOUS
“Now, Mr. Caudle - Mr. Caudle, I say: oh: you can’t be asleep already, I know now, what I mean to say is this; there’s no use, none at all, in our having any disturbance about the matter; but, at last my mind’s made up, Mr. Caudle; I shall leave you. Either I know all you’ve been doing to-night, or to-morrow morning I quit the house. No, no; there’s an end of the marriage state, I think - an end of all confidence between man and wife - if a husband’s to have secrets and keep ’em all to himself. Pretty secrets they must be, when his own wife can’t know ’em! Not fit for any decent person to know, I’m sure, if that’s the case. Now, Caudle, don’t let us quarrel, there’s a good soul, tell me what it’s all about? A pack of nonsense, I dare say; still - not that I care much about it, - still I should like to know. There’s a dear. Eh: oh, don’t tell me there’s nothing in it: I know better. I’m not a fool, Mr. Caudle: I know there’s a good deal in it. Now, Caudle, just tell me a little bit of it. I’m sure I’d tell you anything. You know I would. Well?
“Caudle, you’re enough to vex a saint! Now don’t you think you’re going to sleep; because you’re not. Do you suppose I’d ever suffered you to go and be made a mason, if I didn’t suppose I was to know the secret too? Not that it’s anything to know, I dare say; and that’s why I’m determined to know it.
“But I know what it is; oh yes, there can be no doubt. The secret is, to ill-use poor women; to tyrannise over ’em; to make ’em your slaves: especially your wives. It must be something of the sort, or you wouldn’t be ashamed to have it known. What’s right and proper never need be done in secret. It’s an insult to a woman for a man to be a freemason, and let his wife know nothing of it. But, poor soul! she’s sure to know it somehow - for nice husbands they all make. Yes, yes; a part of the secret is to think better of all the world than their own wives and families. I’m sure men have quite enough to care for - that is, if they act properly - to care for them they have at home. They can’t have much care to spare for the world besides.