"Well, I'm sure," said Julia, "if you think you will be done for, you had better not think of it any more, Mr. Benjamin."
"It won't bear thinking of, my dear. It's like a cold bath in January: you had better shut yer eyes and tumble in."
"Upon my word, Ben," said Sir Richard, laughing, "you are anything but gallant; and if I were Julia, I would not have you."
"Not have me? Lord, yes, she'll have me. Only look at me."
"Ah," said Julia, "you think, because you are a great monster of a fellow, that anybody would have you; but I can tell you that a husband half your size would be just as well, and I only wonder, after you have made all the neighbours laugh at me, that I have a word to say to such a mountain of a man, that I do, you wretch!"
"Laugh!" cried Ben, "Why, my duck, what do they laugh at? I should like to catch them laughing."
"Why, you know, you wretch, that that day it rained as if cats and dogs were coming down, you took me up as if I had been a baby, you did, and carried me home, and me with a jug of porter in my right hand, and the change out of a shilling in my left, so that I could not help myself a bit, and all the street laughing. Oh, I hate you!"
"She hates me!" said Ben. "Oh!"
"But she don't mean it, Ben," said Sir Richard.
"Do you think she doesn't, sir?"