Mr. Caudle

“ Caudle, goodness knows! and when I do, I'm always refused—of course. Oh yes! anybody but your own lawful wife. Every other husband aboard the boat could behave like a husband—but I was left to shift for myself. To be sure, that's nothing new; I always am. Every other man, worthy to be called a man, could smuggle a few things for his wife—but I might as well be alone in the world. Not one poor half-dozen of silk stockings could you put in your hat for me; and everybody else was rolled in lace, and I don't know what. Eh? What, Mr. Caudle? "What do I want with silk stockings? ”

“ But I'm a fool to trouble my head about you.
“And you're not going to let me know the secret, eh? You mean to say,—you're not? Now, Caudle, you know it's a hard matter to put me in a passion—not that I care about the secret itself: no, I wouldn't give a button to know it, for it's all nonsense, I'm sure. It isn't the secret I care about: it's the slight, Mr. Caudle; it's the studied insult that a man pays to his wife, when he thinks of going through the world keeping something to himself which he won't let her know. Man and wife one, indeed! ”

“ I'd make a law against any of 'em having wives, except upon paper; for goodness help the dear creatures tied to them! Like innocent moths lured by a candle! Talking of candles, you don't know that the lamp in the passage is split to bits! I say you don't—do you hear me, Mr. Caudle? Won't you answer? Do you know where you are? What?
"In the Garden of Eden?
"Are you? Then you've no business there at this time of night."
"And saying this," writes Caudle, "she scrambled from the bed and put out the light." ”

“ Nobody cries out more about clean linen than you do—and nobody leads a poor woman so miserable a life when she tries to make her husband comfortable. Yes, Mr. Caudle—comfortable! You needn't keep chewing the word, as if you couldn't swallow it. "Was there ever such a woman?
"No, Caudle; I hope not: I should hope no other wife was ever put upon as I am! It's all very well for you. I can't have a little wash at home like anybody else but you must go about the house swearing to yourself, and looking at your wife as if she was your bitterest enemy. ”

“ Caudle? A good deal of it, sir. Nice crowding and squeezing in those shows, I know. Pretty places! And you a married man and the father of a family. No: I won't hold my tongue. It's very well for you to threaten to get up. You're to go to Greenwich Fair, and race up and down the hill, and play at kiss in the ring. Pah! it's disgusting, Mr. Caudle. ”

“ I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death; yes; and that's what you lent the umbrella for. Of course!
"Nice clothes I shall get too, trapesing through weather like this. My gown and bonnet will be spoilt quite. Needn't I wear 'em, then? Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear 'em. No, sir, I'm not going out a dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows! it isn't often that I step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at once,—better, I should say. But when I do go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to go like a lady. Oh! ”

“ Mr. Caudle, you don't know what you talked that day—but I do. Yes; and you then sat at the table as if your face, as I may say, was buttered with happiness, and—What? No, Mr. Caudle, don't say that; I have not wiped the butter off—not I. If you above all men are not happy, you ought to be, gracious knows!
"Yes, I will talk of fourteen years ago. Ha! ”

“ And of course they only laugh at you. 'Caudle's an easy fool,' they cry—I know it as well as if I heard 'em—'Caudle's an easy fool; anybody may lead him.' Yes; anybody but his own wife;—and she—of course—is nobody. "And now, everybody that's arrested will of course send to you. Yes, Mr. Caudle, you'll have your hands full now, no doubt of it. You'll soon know every sponging-house and every sheriff's officer in London. Your business will have to take care of itself; you'll have enough to do to run from lawyer to lawyer after the business of other people. ”

“ At your time——”
“Here,” says Caudle, “I dozed off, hearing confusedly the words—hill—gypsies—rattles—roundabout—swings—pink bonnet—nuts.”
LECTURE X. ON MR. CAUDLE'S SHIRT-BUTTONS. THERE, Mr. Caudle, I hope you 're in a little better temper than you were this morning? There—you needn't begin to whistle: people don't come to bed to whistle. But it's like you. I can't speak, that you don't try to insult me. Once, I used to say, you were the best creature living: now, you get quite a fiend. Do let you rest? No: I won't let you rest. ”

“ So he can go with his Skylarks, they may wear sackcloth for pinafores, and packthread for garters.
“You'd better not let that Mr. Prettyman come here, that's all; or, rather, you'd better bring him once. Yes, I should like to see him. He wouldn't forget it. A man who, I may say, lives and moves only in a spittoon. A man who has a pipe in his mouth as constant as his front teeth. A sort of tavern king, with a lot of fools, like you, to laugh at what lie thinks his jokes, and give him consequence. No, Mr. Caudle, no; it's no use your telling me to go to sleep, for I won't. Go to sleep, indeed! ”

“ Caudle still lives—and will live as long as her sex; therefore, England and America still chuckle.
You ought to be very rich, Mr. Caudle. I wonder who'd lend you five pounds! But so it is: a wife may work and slave. Oh, dear! the many things that might have been done with five pounds! As if people picked up money in the streets! But you always were a fool, Mr. Caudle! I've wanted a black satin gown these three years, and that five pounds would have pretty well bought it. But it's no matter how I go—not at all. Everybody says I don't dress as becomes your wife—and I don't ”

“ A nice book, I think, to read in bed; and a very respectable person he was who wrote it.
"What do I know of him?
"Much more than you think. A very pretty fellow, indeed, with his six wives. What?
"He hadn't six—he'd only three?
"That's nothing to do with it; but of course you'll take his part. Poor women! A nice time they had with him, I dare say! And I've no doubt, Mr. Caudle, you'd like to follow Mr. Milton's example; else you wouldn't read the stuff he wrote. But you don't use me as he treated the poor souls who married him. Poets, indeed! ”

“ A hedgehog! A pretty thing for a woman to be called by her husband! Now you don't think I'll lie quietly in bed, and be called a hedgehog—do you, Mr. Caudle?
"Well, I only hope Miss Prettyman had a good dinner, that's all. I had none! You know I had none—how was I to get any? You know that the only part of the turkey I care for is the merry-thought. And that, of course, went to Miss Prettyman. Oh, I saw you laugh when you put it on her plate! And you don't suppose, after such an insult as that, I'd taste another thing upon the table? No, I should hope I have more spirit than that. Yes ”

“ Badgerly—for all her hard words—after she went away, I'm sure my heart quite bled for her. What do you say, Mr. Caudle?
"Serves her right—she should hold her tongue?
"Yes; that's like your tyranny—you'd never let a poor woman speak. Eh—what, what, Mr. Caudle?
"That's a very fine speech, I dare say; and wives are very much obliged to you, only there's not a bit of truth in it. No, we women don't get together, and pick our husbands to pieces, just as sometimes mischievous little girls rip up their dolls. That's an old sentiment of yours, Mr. Caudle ”

“ Yes, I dare say; other people may have puddings with cold mutton. No doubt of it; and other people become bankrupts. But if ever you get into the Gazette, it shan't be my fault—no; I'll do my duty as a wife to you, Mr. Caudle; you shall never have it to say that it was my housekeeping that brought you to beggary. No; you may sulk at the cold meat—ha! I hope you 'll never live to want such a piece of cold mutton as we had to-day! And you may threaten to go to a tavern to dine ”

“ Going and spending your money, and—nonsense! don't tell me—no, if you were to ten times swear it, I wouldn't believe that you only spent eighteen-pence on a Saturday. You can't be all those hours, and only spend eighteen-pence. I know better. I'm not quite a fool, Mr. Caudle. A great deal you could have for eighteen-pence! And all the Club married men and fathers of families. The more shame for 'em! Skylarks, indeed! They should call themselves Vultures; for they can only do as they do by robbing their innocent wives and children. Eighteen-pence a week! ”

“ People who don't care for their families are better thought of than those who do; I've long found out that.
When the Cat's away the mice will play. Mr. Caudle's compliments to Mr. Henry Prettyman, and expects to have the honour of his company on this joyful occasion, at half-past Eight o'clock. "And what a condition the carpet's in! They've taken five pounds out of it, if a farthing, with their filthy boots, and I don't know what besides. And then the smoke in the hearthrug, and a large cinder-hole burnt in it! ”

“ I hear a good deal of other people's husbands, certainly; I can't shut my ears; I wish I could: but I never say anything about you,—and I might, and you know it—and there's somebody else that knows it, too. No: I sit still and say nothing; what I have in my own bosom about you, Caudle, will be buried with me. But I know what you think of wives. I heard you talking to Mr. Prettyman, when you little thought I was listening, and you didn't know much what you were saying—I heard you. 'My dear Prettyman,' says you, 'when some women get talking, they club all their husbands' faults together ”

“ You have such very fine friends, I wonder who gives you brandy when you go out!
"No, indeed, he couldn't be content with my pickled cabbage—and I should like to know who makes better—but he must have walnuts. And you, too, like a fool—now, don't you think to stop me, Mr. Caudle; a poor woman may be trampled to death, and never say a word—you, too, like a fool—I wonder who'd do it for you—to insist upon the girl going out for pickled walnuts. And in such a night too! With snow upon the ground. Yes; you're a man of fine feelings, you are, Mr. ”

“ Prettyman. No: I wouldn't put up with it from the best man that ever trod. You 'll not make me afraid to speak to you, however you may swear at the door-mat. No, Mr. Caudle, that you won't.
“You don't intend to stay out till two in the morning! How do you know what you 'll do when you get among such people? Men can't answer for themselves when they get boozing one with another. They never think of their poor wives, who are grieving and wearing themselves out at home. ”

“ No; we'll stay at home. We shall all be ill in the winter—every one of us, all but you; and nothing ever makes you ill. I've no doubt we shall all be laid up, and there'll be a doctor's bill as long as a railroad; but never mind that. It's better—much better—to pay for nasty physic than for fresh air and wholesome salt water. Don't call me 'woman,' and ask 'what it will cost.' I tell you, if you were to lay the money down before me on that quilt, I wouldn't go now—certainly not. It's better we should all be sick; yes, then you'll be pleased.
"That's right, Mr. Caudle ”

“ You ought to have married a negro slave, and not any respectable woman.
“You 're to go about the house looking like thunder all the day, and I'm not to say a word. Where do you think pudding's to come from every-day? You show a nice example to your children, you do; complaining, and turning your nose up at a sweet piece of cold mutton, because there's no pudding! You go a nice way to make 'em extravagant—teach 'em nice lessons to begin the world with. Do you know what puddings cost; or do you think they fly in at the window?
“You hate cold mutton. The more shame for you, Mr. Caudle. ”

“ Mr. Spielmann says that "Mrs. Keeley made a life-like Mrs. Caudle at the Lyceum—only perhaps a little too fresh and charming," but the list of dramatis personæ in the tattered little copy of the "bagatelle" which I rescued from some "penny box," says that the character of Mrs. Caudle was impersonated by Mr. Keeley. The slight piece was produced in July, 1845, and enjoyed a considerable measure of popularity.
Nor was it only to the stage that Mrs. Caudle found her way. The "Caudle Duet" was "versified from Punch by B. Nathan; "John Leech made lithograph portraits of the husband and wife ”

“ Then, Caudle, you never need go to bed without something nice and hot. And you want it, Caudle.
"You don't want it?
"Nonsense, you do; for you're not strong, Caudle; you know you're not.
"I'm sure, the money she'd save us in housekeeping. Ha! what an eye she has for a joint! The butcher doesn't walk that could deceive dear mother. And then, again, for poultry! What a finger and thumb she has for a chicken! I never could market like her: it's a gift— quite a gift.
"And then you recollect her marrow-puddings? ”

“ Now, love, if she was only living with us—come, you're not asleep, Caudle—if she was only living with us, you could have marrow puddings every day. Now, don't fling yourself about and begin to swear at marrow puddings; you know you like 'em, dear.
"What a hand, too, dear mother has for a pie crust! But it's born with some people. What do you say?
"Why wasn't it born with me?
"Now, Caudle, that's cruel—unfeeling of you; I wouldn't have uttered such a reproach to you for the whole world. Consider, dear; people can't be born as they like. ”