radict me
at dinner-time--oh no, not you!' says the gentleman. 'Yes, I did,' says
the lady. 'Oh, you did,' cries the gentleman 'you admit that?' 'If you
call that contradiction, I do,' the lady answers; 'and I say again,
Edward, that when I know you are wrong, I will contradict you. I am not
your slave.' 'Not my slave!' repeats the gentleman bitterly; 'and you
still mean to say that in the Blackburns' new house there are not more
than fourteen doors, including the door of the wine-cellar!' 'I mean to
say,' retorts the lady, beating time with her hair-brush on the palm of
her hand, 'that in that house there are fourteen doors and no more.'
'Well then--' cries the gentleman, rising in despair, and pacing the room
with rapid strides. 'By G-, this is enough to destroy a man's intellect,
and drive him mad!'

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