“Yes, Caudle; we’ve now been married many years, but if we were to live together for a thousand years to come - what are you clasping your hands at? - a thousand years to come, I say, I shall never forget your conduct this day. You could go to the other end of the ship and smoke a cigar, when you knew I should be ill - oh, you knew it; for I always am. The brutal way, too, in which you took that cold brandy-and-water - you thought I didn’t see you; but ill as I was, hardly able to hold my head up, I was watching you all the time. Three glasses of cold brandy-and-water; and you sipped ’em, and drank the health of people who you didn’t care a pin about; whilst the health of your own lawful wife was nothing. Three glasses of brandy-and-water, and I left - as I may say - alone! You didn’t hear ’em, but everybody was crying shame of you.
“What do you say?
“A good deal my own fault? I took too much dinner?
“Well, you are a man! If I took more than the breast and leg of that young goose - a thing, I may say, just out of the shell - with the slightest bit of stuffing, I’m a wicked woman. What do you say?
“Lobster salad?
“La! - how can you speak of it? A month-old baby would have eaten more. What?
“Gooseberry pie?
“Well, if you’ll name that you’ll name anything. Ate too much indeed! Do you think I was going to pay for a dinner, and eat nothing? No, Mr. Caudle; it’s a good thing for you that I know a little more of the value of money than that.
“But, of course, you were better engaged than in attending to me. Mr. Prettyman came on board at Gravesend. A planned thing, of course. You think I didn’t see him give you a letter.
“It wasn’t a letter; it was a newspaper?