Punch / Almanack (1846)

PUNCH'S ALMANACK FOE 1846.

R ailway Miseries. > Scene.— A Villa, a convenient railway distance from Town. Enter a deputation. Spokesman. " If you please, Mum, would
No. II. S y°u ^ave any objection to our little Mill coming off on your grass-plot ?"

CHAP. II.— HOW MR. CAUDLE BEGINS TO SHOW SOMETHING "OF THE FIEND THAT'S IN HIM."

" It is rather extraordinary, Mrs. Caudle, that we have now been mar- !| gone, Caudle'—she used to say—' then you '11 know the wife I was to yon.*
i-ied four weeks—1 don't exactly see what you have to sigh about—and yet l! And now I do know it.

vou can't make me a proper cup of tea. However, 1 don't know howl j ■' Here's the eggs boiled to a stone again ! Do you think, Mrs. Caudle,
'lauld expect it. There never was but one woman who could make tea to I I 'in a canary-bird, to be fed upon hard eggs? Don't tell me about the
my taste, and she is now in Heaven. Now, Mrs. Caudle, let me hear no j servant. A wife is answerable to her husband for her servants It's her

crying. 1 'm not one of the people to be melted by the tears of a woman
r'or you can all cry—all of you—at a minute's notice. The water's always
laid on, and down it comes if a man only holds up his finger.

You didn't think 1 could be so brutal? That's it. Let a man only

business to hire proper people: if she doesn't, she's not tit to be a wile.
1 rind the money, Mrs. Caudle, and 1 expect you to find the cooker}'.

•' There you are with your pocket-handkerchief again : the old flag of ]
truce ; but it doesn't trick me. A pretty honey-moon? Honey-moon, non-;

speak, and he's brutal. It's a woman's first duty to make a decent cup of '! sense! People can't have two honey-moons in their lives. There are fee

tea. What do you think I married you for? It's all very well with your
tambour-work and such trumpery. You can make butterflies on kettle-
holders ; but can you make a pudding, ma'am ? I '11 be bound not.

Of course, as usual: you've given me the comer-roll; because you

ings—1 find it now—that we can't have twice in our existence. There 's
no making honey a second time.

" No : I think 1 've put up with your neglect long enough : and there's-'
nothing like beginning as we intend to go on. Therefore, Mrs. Caudlk, if

know I hate a corner-roll. I did think you must have seen that. I did \ my tea i<n't made a little more to my liking to-morrow—and if you insult
hope I should not be obliged to speak on so paltry a subject—but it's no use | me with a herring like that—and boil my e^'gs that you might fire 'em out of
to hope to be mild with you. I see that's hopeless. guns why, perhaps, Mrs. Caudlk, you may see a man in a passion, it

" And what a herring! And you call it a bloater, I suppose? Ha ! there : takes a good deal to rouse me, but when I am up—1 say, when I am up — j
was a woman who had an eve for a bloater, but—sainted creature !—she's i t; at s all.

here na longer. You wish she was ? Oh, I understand that. I'm sure if j " Where did 1 put my gloves ? You don't know? Of course not: you,
anybod / skould wish her back it's—but she was too good for me. 'When I'm I know nothiHg."