Punch (9.1845)

PUNCH, OR THE LONDON CHARIVARI.

85

MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES.

LECTURE XXIX.

MRS. CAUDLE THINKS " THE TIME HAS COME TO HAVE A COTTAGE

OUT OF TOWN."

Caudle, you ought to have had something nice
to-night; for you're not well, love — I know
you're not. Ha! that's like you men,—so head-
strong ! You will have it, that nothing ails you ;
but I can tell, Caudle. The eye of a wife—
and such a wife as I've been to you—can at
once see whether a husband's well or not. You've
been turning like tallow all the week ; and what's
more, you eat nothing, now. It makes me melan-
choly to see you at a joint. I don't say any-
thing at dinner before the children ; but I don't
feel the less. No, no ; you 're not very well; and
you 're not as strong as a horse. Don't deceive
yourself—nothing of the sort. No, and you don't
eat as much as ever ; and if you do, you don't eat
with a relish, I'm sure of that. You can't deceive me there.

" But I know what's killing you. It's the confinement; it's the
bad air you breathe ; it's the smoke of London. Oh yes, I know
your old excuse : you never found the air bad before. Perhaps not.
But as people grow older, and get on in trade—and, after all, we've
nothing to complain of, Caudle—London air always disagrees
with 'em. Delicate health comes with money: I'm sure of it.
What a colour you had once, when you'd hardly a sixpence ; and
qow, look at you !

" 'Twould add thirty years to your life—and think what a blessing
that would be to me ; not that I shall live a tenth part of the time—
thirty years, if you'd take a nice little house somewhere at Brixton.
You hate Brixton ? I must say it, Caudle, that's so like you : any
place that's really genteel, you can't abide. Now Brixton and
Balham Hill I think delightful. So select! There, nobody visits
nobody, unless they 're somebody. To say nothing of the delightful
pews that make the churches so respectable !

" However, do as you like. If you won't go to Brixton, what do
you say to Clapham Common ? Oh, that's a very fine story ! Never
tell me ! No; you wouldn't be left alone, a Robinson Crusoe with wife
and children, because you 're in the retail way\ What! The retired
wholesales never visit the retired retails at Clapham 1 Ha ! that's only your
old sneering at the world, Ma. Caudle ; but I don't believe it.
And after all, people should keep to their station, or what was this
life made for ? Suppose a tallow-merchant does keep himself above
a tallow-chandler,—I call it only a proper pride. What ? You call it
the aristocracy of fat ? I don't know what you mean by aristocracy ;
but I suppose it's only another of your dictionary words, that's
hardly worth the finding out.

" What do you say to Hornsey or Muswell Hill ? Eh 1 Too high ?
What a man you are ! Well then—Battersea ? Too low ? You are
an aggravating creature, Caudle, you must own that! Hampstead,
then ? Too cold 9 Nonsense ; it would brace you up like a drum,
Caudle; and that's what you want. But you don't deserve any-
body to think of your health or your comforts either. There's some
pretty spots, I'm told, about Fulham. Now, Caudle, I won't have
you say a word against Fulham. That must be a sweet place : dry,
and healthy, and every comfort of life about it—else is it likely that
a bishop would live there ? Now, Caudle, none of your heathen
principles—I won't hear 'em. I think what satisfies a bishop ought
to content you ; but the politics you learn at that club are dreadful.
To hear you talk of bishops—well, I only hope nothing will happen
to you, for the sake of the dear children !

"A nice little house and a garden ! I know it—I was born for a
garden ! There's something about it makes one feel so innocent.
My heart somehow always opens and shuts at roses. And then
what nice currant wine we could make ! And again, get 'em as
fresh as you will, there's no radishes like your own radishes!
They 're ten times as sweet! What ? And twenty times as dear ? Yes;
there you go ! Anything that I fancy, you always bring up the
expense.

"No, Mr. Caudle, I should not be tired of it in a month. I tell
jou I was made for the country. But here you've kept me—and

much you've cared about my health—here you've kept me in this
filthy London, that I hardly know what grass is made of. Much you
care for your wife and family to keep 'em here to be all smoked like
bacon. I can see it—it's stopping the children's growth ; they '11 be
dwarfs, and have their father to thank for it. If you'd the heart of
a parent, you couldn't bear to look at their white faces. Dear little
Dick ! he makes no breakfast. What ? He aU six slices this morning i
A pretty father you must be to count 'em. But that's nothing to
what the dear child could do, if, like other children, he'd a fair
chance.

"Ha ! and when we could be so comfortable ! But it's always the
case, you never will be comfortable with me. How nice and fresh
you'd come up to business every morning ; and what pleasure it
would be for me to put a tulip or a pink in your button-hole, just, as
I may say, to ticket you from the country. But then, Caudle, you
never were like any other man ! But I know why you won't leave
London. Yes, I know. Then, you think, you couldn't go to your
filthy club—that's it. Then you'd be obliged to be at home, like
any other decent man. Whereas, you might, if you liked, enjoy
yourself under your own apple-tree, and 1 'm sure I should never say
anything about your tobacco out of doors. My only wish is to make
you happy, Caudle, and you won't let me do it.

" You don't speak, love ? Shall I look about a house to-morrow !
It will be a broken day with me, for I'm going out to have little
pet's ears bored—What % You icon't have her ears bored 1 And why
not, I should like to know I It's a barbarous, savage custom ? Oh,
Mr. Caudle ! the sooner you go away from the world, and live in a
cave, the better. You're getting not fit for Christian society. What
next ? My ears were bored and—what ? So are yours ? I know what
you mean—but that's nothing to do with it. My ears, I say, were
bored, and so were dear mother's, and grandmother's before her;
and I suppose there were no more savages in our family than in
yours, Mr. Caudle? Besides,— why should little pet's ears go
naked, any more than any of her sisters ? They wear ear-rings,—
you never objected before. What * You've learned better now ? Yes,
that's all with your filthy politics agaiD. You'd shake all the world
up in a dice-box, if you'd your way : not that you care a pin about
the world, only you'd like to get a better throw for yourself,—that's
all. But little pet shall be bored, and don't think to prevent it. I
suppose she's to be married some day, as well as her sisters ? And
who '11 look at a girl without ear-rings, I should like to know \ If
you knew anything of the world, you'd know what a nice diamond
ear-ring will sometimes do—when one can get it—before this. But
I know why you cau't abide ear-rings now ; Miss Prettyjian
doesn't wear 'em ; she would—I've no doubt—if she could only
get 'em. Yes,—it's Miss Prettyjian, who—

" There, Caudle, now be quiet, and I '11 say no more about pet's
ears at present. We'll talk when you're reasonable. I don't want to
put you out of temper, goodness knows ! And so, love, about the cot-
tage ? What ? 'Twill be so far from business ? But it needn't be far,
dearest. Quite a nice distance ; so that on j our late nights, you may
always be at home, have your supper, get to bed, and all by eleven.
Eh,—sweet one ?"

" I don't know what I answered," says Caudle, " but I know this ;
in less than a fortnight I found myself in a sort of a green bird-cage
of a house, which my wife—gentle satirist !—insisted upon calling
' The Turtle-Dovery.' "

Punch an Incendiary I

La France and the National declare that the depot at Toulon was fired
by the English. Well, we confess the fact. It was Punch that did the
deed : innocent, unconscious Punch! The truth is, the number that
contained Punch's letter to Joinville had been somehow smuggled into
the place ; and since last summer bad lain smouldering among the stores.
At length the latent heat of that fervid article burst into flame, and
communicating its fire to everything about it, Toulon lost its depot I

WELL WORTH THE MONEY.

We learn from the late debate on the Estimates, that some of the door-
keepers of the House of Commons receive as much as 500/. a-year. bar
from thinking this salary too much, we consider the functionaries are
underpaid, if they have to remove all the dirty things, both real and ima-
ginary, that people lay at the door of the House of Commons.