Punch / Almanack (1846)

PUNCH'S^ALMA^ACK FOE 1846.

SONG OF N"AY.

Oh, May's a month when everything

In verdancy is seen,
The sooty Jack then doffd his black

For Nature's leafy green ;

But, oh ! the Ramoneur so grim,
With scraggy- pointed hand,

Has coldly swept the merry sweeps
From out our father-land.

I care not what a heartless world

Shall either think or say,
But oh ! to me the little sweeps

Were half the charm of May.

railway gardening.

With a view to standard fruit, cultivate good
trunks, but keep clear of all unprofitable branches.
Take care that the stock is of the right sort, or it
Trill not be worth putting in, and will not pay fur
the outlay.

the moon's age.

The moon, like certain politicians, changes
every thirty days, when she looks at things in
general with quite a new face. If a fact were
wanting to determine the sex of the moon, it
would be found in her obstinacy about her ; ge.
Like most ladies, she is never more than a day
older than thirly.

Chops.—The best place in the world for chops
is China, where persons of the highest rank have
one ti.e privilege of serving them.

Railway Miseries.! Scene—Kcei Street. Time—7pan. to Starting Time. Policeman, loq. — " Brighton Station? You can't come this way-
1\ O. V. ' you must go round by Holborn." ^

CHAP. V.—SHOWING HOW CAUDLE CAME HOME VERY LATE, AND VERY VINOUS : HE COMPLAINS OF WANT OF

SYMPATHY.

" The old story, Mrs. Caudle ! Sulky again ! But so it is with women
of no intellect; they can never properly sympathise with a man. You make
the tea as if you were making poison, and all because I kept you up - just a
little last night. Ha ! I only wish you had half what I have upon my mind.
What? You wouldn't have half'what I had in my head? Indeed? I
know what you mean ; but I only wish you had. You'd have a little more
sympathy for what I have to go through ; as I say, you don't know what's in
my mind. Womfen, who have to sit quietly basking before the fire all day,
doing nothing whatever, except perhaps a little sewing—women, in their snug
homes, know nothing of what their husbands have to go through in the
world ; slaving and wearing, as I maysay, their very souls out. Ha ! 1 only
wish I'd been a woman. Oh, you needn't sigh, Mrs. Caudle,you've all the
best of it from the beginning.

" For how can you tell, when your husband is doing all he can to seem
Jiappy and delighted at home—What ? You never see him in such a state.'
You might, if you'd eyes like any other woman. I say, how can you tell at
the very time that he's full-running over I may say, with smiles, and
affability, and good temper—how can you tell that his brain isn't being torn
into bits, and all to make his wife happy and comfortable at her own fire-
s'ide? I must say it; I only wish you'd my anxieties, sometimes ; just for
half a day, that's all; you'd have more sympathy, Mrs. Caudle ; a little

more sympathy. There you go on again—with your woman's arguments.
If I have so much on my mind, I needn't stay out so late! How can you
possibly tell what it is that detains me ? If I chose, like some men, to tell
my wife everything, and so worry you and make you unhappy with all sorts
of anxieties,—then, indeed, I dare say I might have a little more tender-
ness from you. But, precisely because I wish to keep you in clover—
precisely because I won't let you be worried by worldly matters—you think
I've nothing to contend with. Ha! Mrs. Caulle—I can't help saying it—if
you only knew what was on my mind !

" What do you know what wine will do, or won't do ? Besides, I'd taken
but a poor half-pint of the very weakest sherry last night ! Only half-a-pint.
But when I'm harassed you ought to know how a little tells upon me. I
was not intoxicated, Mrs Caudle ; I was merely intensely anxious. And
if you'd any sympathy you'd know it. Yes, a woman with sympathy would
have felt for me ; would have turned a face upon me-a face beaming with
love and comfort—and not have been all night making up 1< oks of thunder
to come to breakfast with.

" I'm going out, now, and I shall take the key ; so don't sit up again, I
promised to sup at Doubleday's, to-night; and you don't 1 now what's on
my mind." )-)J