Page:Mrs Caudle's curtain lectures.djvu/216

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LECTURE XXXII.

MRS. CAUDLE DISCOURSES OF MAIDS-OF-ALL-WORK AND MAIDS IN GENERAL. MR. CAUDLE'S "INFAMOUS BEHAVIOUR" TEN YEARS AGO.
"T

HERE now, it isn't my intention to say a word to-night, Mr. Caudle. No; I want to go to sleep, if I can; for after what I've gone through to-day, and with the headache I've got,—and if I haven't left my smelling-salts on the mantelpiece, on the right-hand corner just as you go into the room—nobody could miss it—I say, nobody could miss it—in a little green bottle, and—well, there you lie like a stone, and I might perish and you wouldn't move. Oh, my poor head! But it may open and shut, and what do you care?

"Yes, that's like your feeling, just. I want my salts, and you tell me there's nothing like being still for a headache. Indeed? But I'm not going to be still; so don't you think it. That's just how a woman's put upon. But I know your aggravation—I know your art. You think to keep me quiet about that minx Kitty,—your favourite, sir! Upon my life, I'm not to discharge my own servant without—but she shall go. If I had to do