"That's my business. No, Caudle, it's no such thing. I don't sit up because I may have the pleasure of talking about it; and you're an ungrateful, unfeeling creature to say so. I sit up because I choose it; and if you don't come home all the night long—and 'twill soon come to that, I've no doubt—still, I'll never go to bed, so don't think it.
![]() MR. CAUDLE HASN'T A LATCHKEY. |
"Oh, yes! the time runs away very pleasantly with you men at your clubs—selfish creatures! You can laugh and sing, and tell stories, and never think of the clock; never think there's such a person as a wife belonging to you. It's nothing to you that a poor woman's sitting up, and telling the minutes, and seeing all sorts of things in the fire—and sometimes thinking something dreadful has happened to you—more fool she to care a straw about you!—This is all nothing. Oh no; when a woman's once married she's a slave—worse than a slave—and must bear it all!
"And what you men can find to talk about I can't think! Instead of a man sitting every night at home with his wife, and going to bed at a Christian hour,—going to a club, to meet a set of people who don't care a button for him—it's monstrous! What do you say?