'I will not come to your bed again. You 'ave refused it to one who was better than I; and why should I 'ave it? Go, woman; go and leave me.'
'Now, then, don't come trying your airs on me,' said Mrs Clinton. 'They won't wash. Come up to bed.'
'I tell you I will not,' replied Mr Clinton, decisively. 'Go, woman, and leave me!'
'Well, if I do, I sha'n't leave the light; so there!' she said spitefully, and, taking the lamp, left Mr Clinton in darkness.
Mrs Clinton was not henceforth on the very best of terms with her husband, but he always treated her with his accustomed gentleness, though he insisted on spending his nights on the dining-room sofa.
But perhaps the most objectionable to Mrs Clinton of all her good man's eccentricities, was that he no longer gave her his week's money every Saturday afternoon as he had been accustomed to do; the coldness between them made her unwilling to say anything about it, but the approach of quarter day forced her to pocket her dignity and ask for the money.
'Oh, James!'—she no longer called him Jimmy—'will you give me the money for the rent?'
'Money?' he answered with the usual smile on his lips. 'I 'ave no money.'
'What d'you mean? You've not given me a farthing for ten weeks.'
'I 'ave given it to those who want it more than I.'