The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-01-02
Dolly Hears Mrs. Caudle, IT,, Deliver Some Very Pointed Curtain Lectures
 Sitting Up' for MT. Caude New Years
no use talking. MT.
 Caudle, this life is simply kill

HH1T1HERES no use talking MT
 Caudle, this life is simply kill
 ing me; I'm sinking just as fast
 as can; it can't last much longer; my
 constitution won't stand 1t. I suppose seems as if you'd done everything that you could think of to undermine my health and break my heart, and at last you've just about succeeded, and when I'm dead and gone, MT. Caudle, who, I'd like to know, will sit up for you then2"
 You didn't ask me to? Certainly not; you'd never have me around at all if you could help 1t, sir; but let me tell you,
 MT. Caudle, I sat up for you because I choose to; you are my own lawful hus- band and if a woman can't sit up nights for her own husband I'd like to know who she can sit up for? But that's all the thanks poor creature ever gets Whats the use of sitting up? 1 should i think you d know, MT. Caudle. Didn't you come home New Years eve and tumble for fully half an hour at the keyhole of the front door trying 10 get in? Didn't I hear you swearing like a trooper? Didn't I hear you stumble up the steps and fall against the door like thousand pound weight? I'd like to know who d
 have let you in if it hadn't been for me- sir? And yet this is your gratitude; this my reward; your fussing and talking to me like pickpocket. and making my life a perfect burden to me-
 You are an ungrateful, unfeeling wretch, MT. Caudle, to say the least of it.; hope you don't think derive any pleas ure from sitting up for you until 12 and 1 o'clock at night, sir? Next thing sup pose you'll be coming home in the early morning; it seems to me that each night it is just a little bit later than the night before; but let me tell you something, Mr. Caudle, if it is o'clock in the morn ing and the sun is shining bright and the children are all on their way to school, l shall be sitting up just the same in my arm chair by the fireside, waiting for you. Next thing, the children will be saying about you like little Tommy Tattletale did about his papa. When little Tommy got I up the morning after New Years, at o'clock, and went into the bathroom to | take his bath, who should he meet face 1 to face in the hall but his father, just 1 coming in from the club. Little Tommy ran to his mother and said with wild ex- citement: oh, mother; papa is certainly | up and dressed early this morning. The l poor little creature! Think of him not even suspecting that that outrageous old reprobate of a Tattletale had never been | to bed.
 ''NO MT. Caudles cOuldnI stand that sort of duplicity and deception; wouldn t have such tales told on my husband and my children and me- and propose to stop l this business of you staying out till ali
 hours of the morning, or die in the at tempt!'
 'Tll tell you when all this perform ance began. MT. Caudle; it was when you first insisted upon taking a latch key | of your own; a latch key is the great l est disseminator of trouble and misery l that any married man can possibly come l in contact with. A nice thing for the ] father of a family! Letting himself in
 and out of his own Home whenever he chooses to come in like a thief in the
 night instead of getting home at a re- spectacle hour and letting me go to the door and welcome you home! Don't you | tell me that you do it only to prevent my sitting up for you! That's an un- truth, MT. Caudle, and you know it. Some wives would make great fuss,
 dare say about sitting up for their hus-
 bands, but you've no reason to complain, MT. Caudle; it's my duty, and I dc it cheerfully.'
 'T'd like to know what your second wife will say to your habits and having to sit up in the cold until all hours of