“Ha! you were a good-tempered, nice creature fourteen years ago, and would have done anything for me. Yes, yes, if a woman would be always cared for, she should never marry. There’s quite an end of the charm when she goes to church! We’re all angels while you’re courting us; but once married, how soon you pull our wings off! No, Mr. Caudle, I’m not talking nonsense; but the truth is, you like to hear nobody talk but yourself. Nobody ever tells me that I talk nonsense but you. Now, it’s no use your turning and turning about in that way, it’s not a bit of - what do you say?
“You’ll get up?
“No you won’t, Mr. Caudle; you’ll not serve me that trick again; for I’ve locked the door and hid the key. There’s no getting hold of you all the day-time - but here you can’t leave me. You needn’t groan again, Mr. Caudle.
“Now, Caudle, dear, do let us talk comfortably. After all, love, there’s a good many folks who, I daresay, don’t get on half so well as we’ve done. We’ve both our little tempers, perhaps; but you are aggravating; you must own that, Caudle. Well, never mind; we won’t talk of it; I won’t scold you now. We’ll talk of next Sunday, love. We never have kept our wedding-day, and I think it would be a nice day to have our friends. What do you say?
“They’d think it hypocrisy?
“No hypocrisy at all. I’m sure I try to be comfortable; and if ever man was happy, you ought to be. No, Caudle, no; it isn’t nonsense to keep wedding-days; it isn’t a deception on the world; and if it is, how many people do it! I’m sure it’s only a proper compliment that a man owes to his wife. Look at the Winkles - don’t they give a dinner every year? Well, I know, and if they do fight a little in the course of the twelvemonth, that’s nothing to do with it. They keep their wedding-day, and their acquaintance have nothing to do with anything else.
“As I say, Caudle, it’s only a proper compliment that a man owes to his wife to keep his wedding-day. It’s as much as to say to the whole world - ‘There! if I had to marry again, my blessed wife’s the only woman I’d choose!’ Well! I see nothing to groan at, Mr. Caudle - no, nor to sigh at either; but I know what you mean: I’m sure, what would have become of you if you hadn’t married as you have done - why, you’d have been a lost creature! I know it; I know your habits, Caudle; and - I don’t like to say it, but you’d have been little better than a ragamuffin. Nice scrapes you’d have got into, I know, if you hadn’t had me for a wife. The trouble I’ve had to keep you respectable - and what’s my thanks? Ha! I only wish you’d had some women!
“But we won’t quarrel, Caudle. No; you don’t mean anything, I know. We’ll have this little dinner, eh? Just a few friends? Now don’t say you don’t care - that isn’t the way to speak to a wife; and especially the wife I’ve been to you, Caudle. Well, you agree to the dinner, eh? Now, don’t grunt, Mr. Caudle, but speak out. You’ll keep your wedding-day? What?
“If I let you go to sleep?
“Ha! that’s unmanly, Caudle. Can’t you say ‘Yes,’ without anything else? I say - can’t you say ‘Yes’? There, bless you! I knew you would.