the wet's sure to give me a
cold--it always does. But what do you care for that? Nothing at all. I
may be laid up for what you care, as I dare say I shall--and a pretty
doctor's bill there'll be. I hope there will! It will teach you to lend
your umbrella again. I shouldn't wonder if I caught my death; and that's
what you lent your umbrella for. Of course!

Nice clothes I shall get, too, traipsing through weather like this. My
gown and bonnet will be spoiled quite. Needn't I wear them, then?
Indeed, Mr. Caudle, I shall wear them. No, sir; I'm not going out a
dowdy to please you or anybody else. Gracious knows, it isn't often I
step over the threshold; indeed, I might as well be a slave at
once--better, I should say. But when I go out, Mr. Caudle, I choose to
go as a lady.

Ugh! I look forward with dread for to-morrow. How I'm to go to mother's
I'm sure I can't tell. But, if I die, I'll go. No, sir; I won't _borrow_
an umbrella.

No; and you shan't _buy_ one. Mr. Caudle, if you bring home another
umbrella, I'll throw it into the street. Ha! it was only last week I had
a new nozzle put to that umbrella. I'm sure if I'd known as much as I do
now, it might have gone without one, for all of me.

The children, too, dear things, they'll be sopping wet; for they shan't
stay at home; they shan't lose their learning; it's all their father
will leave them, I'm sure. But they shall go to school. Don't tell me I
said they shouldn't; you are so aggravating, Caudle, you'd spoil the
temper of an angel; they shall go to school; mark that! And if they get
their deaths of cold, it's not my fault. I didn't lend the umbrella.

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 38: By Douglas William Jerrold, an English humorous writer
(1803-1857).]

NOTE: Which of the various specimens of humor here presented do you
enjoy most? Give reasons.

THE DARK DAY IN CONNECTICUT[39]

'Twas on a Mayday of the far old year,
Seventeen hundred eighty, that there fell
Over the bloom and sweet life of the spring,
Over the fresh earth and the heaven of noon,
A horror of great darkness, like the night
In day of which the Norland sagas tell,--
The Twilight of the Gods....
Birds ceased to sing, and all the barnyard fowls
Roosted; the cattle at the pasture bars
Lowed, and looked homeward; bats on leathern wings
Flitted abroad; the sounds of labor died;
Men prayed, and women wept; all ears grew sharp
To hear the doom b