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16
MRS. CAUDLE'S CURTAIN LECTURES.
too. And I suppose, some day, you'll be trying to box my ears? Don't attempt it, Mr. Caudle; I say don't attempt it. Yes—it's all very well for you to say you don't mean it,—but I only say again, don't attempt it. You'd rue it till the day of your death, Mr. Caudle.
"Going and sitting for four hours at a tavern! What men, unless they had their wives with them, can find to talk about, I can't think. No good, of course.
"Eighteenpence a week—and drinking brandy-and-water, enough to swim a boat! And smoking like the funnel of a steamship! And I can't afford myself so much as a piece of tape! It's brutal, Mr. Caudle. It's ve-ve-ve—ry bru——tal."
"And here," says Caudle—"Here, thank Heaven! at last she fell asleep."