"No, nor any body else that had the sense of a goose," said the admiral; "but if it's your husband you want, ma'am, it's no use your looking for him here, for here he is not."
"Then where is he? He is running after some of your beastly vampyres somewhere, I'll be bound, and you know where to send for him."
"Then you are mistaken; for, indeed, we don't. We want him ourselves, ma'am, and can't find him—that's the fact."
"It's all very well talking, sir, but if you were a married woman, with a family about you, and the last at the breast, you'd feel very different from what you do now."
"I'm d——d if I don't suppose I should," said the admiral; "but as for the last, ma'am, I'd soon settle that. I'd wring its neck, and shove it overboard."
"You would, you brute? It's quite clear to me you never had a child of your own."
"Mrs. Chillingworth," said Henry, "I think you have no right to complain to us of your domestic affairs. Where your husband goes, and what he does, is at his own will and pleasure, and, really, I don't see that we are to be made answerable as to whether he is at home or abroad; to say nothing of the bad taste—and bad taste it most certainly is, of talking of your private affairs to other people."
"Oh, dear!" said Mrs. Chillingworth; "that's your idea, is it, you no-whiskered puppy?"
"Really, madam, I cannot see what my being destitute of whiskers has to do with the affair; and I am inclined to think my opinion is quite as good without them as with them."
"I will speak," said Flora, "to the doctor, when I see him."