Think of my wife, my gentle Fanny, having it shouted around the neighborhood that her brute of a husband made her saw all their winter's wood—yes! and split it, and pile it too, and make all the fires, and so on and cetera, and oh! I am glad my husband isn't such a monster!'
I turned on the Irishman, and when he saw my whiskers, he quailed!
The third time, I was blacking my boots, according to Dr. Howl's advice, 'expands the deltoid muscles, is of benefit to the metacarpis, stretches the larynx, opens the oilsophagers, and facilitates expectoration!' I had chosen what Fanny calls her conservatory for my field of operation—the conservatory has two dried fish-geraniums, and a dead dog-rose, in it, besides a bad-smelling cat-nip bush; when, who should come running in but the identical Miss X—— who caught me shaving.
'Poor Fanny,' said she, before I could turn round; 'do you have to black the boots of that odious brute?'
'Miss X——,' said I, turning toward her, folding my arms over my dressing-gown, spite of having a damp, unpolished boot on one arm and a wet blacking-brush in the other hand, for I wished to strike a position and awe at the same time; 'Miss X——, I am that odious brute himself!'
If you had observed her wilt, droop, stutter, fly!
My wife went to the sea-shore last summer. I kept the house open, and staid in town; cause, business. When she returned, Miss X——, who lives opposite, called to see her. In less than five minutes, my wife was a sad, moaning, desolate, injured, disconsolate, afflicted, etcet. woman.
'How-ow-ow c-could you d-do it, Al-lal-bert?' she ejaculated, flooding every word as it came out with tears.
'Do what?'
'Oh-woh! oh-woe-wooh-wa-ah!'