“I don’t want to dress the children up like countesses?
“You often fling that in my teeth, you do: but you know it’s false, Caudle; you know it. I only want to give ’em proper notions of themselves: and what, indeed, can the poor things think when they see the Briggs’s, and the Browns, and the Smiths - and their fathers don’t make the money you do, Caudle - when they see them as fine as tulips? Why, they must think themselves nobody; and to think yourself nobody - depend upon it, Caudle, - isn’t the way to make the world think anything of you.
“What do you say?
“Where did I pick up that?
“Where do you think? I know a great deal more than you suppose - yes; though you don’t give me credit for it. Husbands seldom do. However, the twenty pounds I will have, if I’ve any - or not a farthing. No, sir, no.
“I don’t want to dress up the children like peacocks and parrots!
“I only want to make ’em respectable and - what do you say?
“You’ll give fifteen pounds?
“No, Caudle, no - not a penny will I take under twenty; if I did, it would seem as if I wanted to waste your money: and I’m sure, when I come to think of it, twenty pounds will hardly do. Still, if you’ll give me twenty - no, it’s no use your offering fifteen, and wanting to go to sleep. You sha’n’t close an eye until you promise me twenty. Come, Caudle, love! - twenty, and then you may go to sleep. Twenty - twenty - twenty - ”
“My impression is,” writes Caudle, “that I fell asleep sticking firmly to the fifteen; but in the morning Mrs. Caudle assured me, as a woman of honour, that she wouldn’t let me wink an eye before I promised the twenty: and man is frail - and woman is strong - she had the money.”