Mrs Caudles Curtain Lectures | Page 7

never heard any good come to a man who cared about
jokes. No respectable tradesman does. But I know what I'll do: I'll scare
away your Skylarks. The house serves liquor after twelve of a Saturday;
and if I don't write to the magistrates, and have the licence taken away,
I'm not lying in this bed this night. Yes, you may call me a foolish
woman; but no, Mr. Caudle, no; it's you who are the foolish man; or

worse than a foolish man; you're a wicked one. If you were to die
to-morrow--and people who go to public-houses do all they can to
shorten their lives--I should like to know who would write upon your
tombstone, 'A tender husband and an affectionate father'? I--I'd have no
such falsehoods told of you, I can assure you.
"Going and spending your money, and--nonsense! don't tell me--no, if
you were ten times to swear it, I wouldn't believe that you only spent
eighteenpence on a Saturday. You can't be all those hours and only
spend eighteenpence. I know better. I'm not quite a fool, Mr. Caudle. A
great deal you could have for eighteenpence! 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 eating up their innocent wives and children. Eighteenpence a week!
And if it was only that,--do you know what fifty-two eighteenpences
come to in a year? Do you ever think of that, and see the gowns I wear?
I'm sure I can't, out of the house- money, buy myself a pin-cushion;
though I've wanted one these six months. No--not so much as a ball of
cotton. But what do you care so you can get your brandy-and-water?
There's the girls, too--the things they want! They're never dressed like
other people's children. But it's all the same to their father. Oh, yes! 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 he 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! I'm sure it's
almost time to get up. I hardly know what's the use of coming to bed at
all now.
"The Skylarks, indeed! I suppose you'll be buying a 'Little Warbler,'
and at your time of life, be trying to sing. The peacocks will sing next.
A pretty name you'll get in the neighbourhood; and, in a very little time,

a nice face you'll have. Your nose is getting redder already: and you've
just one of the noses that liquor always flies to. YOU DON'T SEE IT'S
RED? No--I daresay not--but I see it; I see a great many things you
don't. And so you'll go on. In a little time, with your
brandy-and-water--don't tell me that you only take two small glasses: I
know what men's two small glasses are; in a little time you'll have a
face all over as if it was made of red currant jam. And I should like to
know who's to endure you then? I won't, and so don't think it. Don't
come to me.
"Nice habits men learn at clubs! There's Joskins: he was a decent
creature once, and now I'm told he has more than once boxed his wife's
ears. He's a Skylark 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."

LECTURE IV--MR. CAUDLE HAS BEEN CALLED FROM HIS
BED TO BAIL MR. PRETTYMAN FROM THE WATCH-HOUSE

"Fie, Mr. Caudle, I knew it would