FullReads

By and by the gentleman comes-to a little, and passing his hand gloomily across his forehead, reseats himself in his former chair. There is a long silence, and this time the lady begins. ‘I appealed to Mr. Jenkins, who sat next to me on the sofa in the drawing-room during tea–‘ ‘Morgan, you mean,’ interrupts the gentleman. ‘I do not mean anything of the kind,’ answers the lady. ‘Now, by all that is aggravating and impossible to bear,’ cries the gentleman, clenching his hands and looking upwards in agony, ‘she is going to insist upon it that Morgan is Jenkins!’ ‘Do you take me for a perfect fool?’ exclaims the lady; ‘do you suppose I don’t know the one from the other? Do you suppose I don’t know that the man in the blue coat was Mr. Jenkins?’ ‘Jenkins in a blue coat!’ cries the gentleman with a groan; ‘Jenkins in a blue coat! a man who would suffer death rather than wear anything but brown!’ ‘Do you dare to charge me with telling an untruth?’ demands the lady, bursting into tears. ‘I charge you, ma’am,’ retorts the gentleman, starting up, ‘with being a monster of contradiction, a monster of aggravation, a–a–a–Jenkins in a blue coat!–what have I done that I should be doomed to hear such statements!’

Expressing himself with great scorn and anguish, the gentleman takes up his candle and stalks off to bed, where feigning to be fast asleep when the lady comes up-stairs drowned in tears, murmuring lamentations over her hard fate and indistinct intentions of consulting her brothers, he undergoes the secret torture of hearing her exclaim between whiles, ‘I know there are only fourteen doors in the house, I know it was Mr. Jenkins, I know he had a blue coat on, and I would say it as positively as I do now, if they were the last words I had to speak!’

If the contradictory couple are blessed with children, they are not the less contradictory on that account. Master James and Miss Charlotte present themselves after dinner, and being in perfect good humour, and finding their parents in the same amiable state, augur from these appearances half a glass of wine a-piece and other extraordinary indulgences. But unfortunately Master James, growing talkative upon such prospects, asks his mamma how tall Mrs. Parsons is, and whether she is not six feet high; to which his mamma replies, ‘Yes, she should think she was, for Mrs. Parsons is a very tall lady indeed; quite a giantess.’ ‘For Heaven’s sake, Charlotte,’ cries her husband, ‘do not tell the child such preposterous nonsense. Six feet high!’ ‘Well,’ replies the lady, ‘surely I may be permitted to have an opinion; my opinion is, that she is six feet high–at least six feet.’ ‘Now you know, Charlotte,’ retorts the gentleman sternly, ‘that that is NOT your opinion–that you have no such idea–and that you only say this for the sake of contradiction.’ ‘You are exceedingly polite,’ his wife replies; ‘to be wrong about such a paltry question as anybody’s height, would be no great crime; but I say again, that I believe Mrs. Parsons to be six feet–more than six feet; nay, I believe you know her to be full six feet, and only say she is not, because I say she is.’ This taunt disposes the gentleman to become violent, but he cheeks himself, and is content to mutter, in a haughty tone, ‘Six feet–ha! ha! Mrs. Parsons six feet!’ and the lady answers, ‘Yes, six feet. I am sure I am glad you are amused, and I’ll say it again–six feet.’ Thus the subject gradually drops off, and the contradiction begins to be forgotten, when Master James, with some undefined notion of making himself agreeable, and putting things to rights again, unfortunately asks his mamma what the moon’s made of; which gives her occasion to say that he had better not ask her, for she is always wrong and never can be right; that he only exposes her to contradiction by asking any question of her; and that he had better ask his papa, who is infallible, and never can be wrong. Papa, smarting under this attack, gives a terrible pull at the bell, and says, that if the conversation is to proceed in this way, the children had better be removed. Removed they are, after a few tears and many struggles; and Pa having looked at Ma sideways for a minute or two, with a baleful eye, draws his pocket-handkerchief over his face, and composes himself for his after-dinner nap.