“Well,” said Mr. Mudge, innocently, “I don't see anything in particular.”
“You don't!” said Mrs. Mudge with withering sarcasm. “Then you'd better put on your glasses. If you'd been here quarter of an hour ago, you'd have seen Brindle among the cabbages.”
“Did she do any harm?” asked Mr. Mudge, hastily.
“There's scarcely a cabbage left,” returned Mrs. Mudge, purposely exaggerating the mischief done.
“If you had mended that fence, as I told you to do, time and again, it wouldn't have happened.”
“You didn't tell me but once,” said Mr. Mudge, trying to get up a feeble defence.
“Once should have been enough, and more than enough. You expect me to slave myself to death in the house, and see to all your work besides. If I'd known what a lazy, shiftless man you were, at the time I married you, I'd have cut off my right hand first.”
By this time Mr. Mudge had become angry.
“If you hadn't married me, you'd a died an old maid,” he retorted.
This was too much for Mrs. Mudge to bear. She snatched the larger half of the broom, and fetched it down with considerable emphasis upon the back of her liege lord, who, perceiving that her temper was up, retreated hastily from the kitchen; as he got into the yard he descried Brindle, whose appetite had been whetted by her previous raid, re-entering the garden through the gap.