“I don’t wish to annoy you, Mr. Jericho,” said the woman, with dread composure. “But you compel me, gracious knows, much against my nature, to ask when—when will you let me have some money?”

Jericho shook and groaned.

“It is much more afflicting to my nature, much greater suffering to me to ask, than it can be for you to hear. Major Pennibacker never had a pocket to himself. He, dear fellow, always came to me. Ha! how few men can appreciate the true dignity of married life. As I always used to say,—one heart and one pocket. However, as it’s quite time for me to get up; and as I suppose you intend to go to sleep—and as people will be here, and I must give them an answer of some sort,—permit me, Mr. Jericho, to ask you—I’m sure it’s painful enough to my feelings, and I feel degraded by the question—nevertheless, I must and will ask you,—when will you let me have some money?”

Jericho—as though a dagger had been suddenly struck up through the bed—bounced bolt upright. There was a supernatural horror in his look: even his own wife, familiar as she was with his violence, almost squealed. However, silently eyeing him through the small murderous loop-holes of her lace border, Mrs. Jericho saw her pale-faced husband snatch off his cap, holding it away at arm’s length: then, breathing hard and casting back his head, he cried in tones so deep and so unnaturally grating, that the poor woman, like a night-flower, shrank within herself at the first sound,—

“I wish to Heaven I was made of money!”

I wish to Heaven I was made of money!

Mrs. Jericho, considerably relieved that it was no worse, added in a low, deep, earnest voice—“I wish to Heaven you were.”

Foolish and wicked wishes do not fly upwards, but there is no doubt of it, descend below; where, though they are but bodiless syllables, they are often fashioned by the imps into pins and needles, and straightway returned to the world to torment their begetter.

And Solomon Jericho, with a silly, sinful wish at his heart—a[Pg 18] wish further emphasised by the thoughtless amen of his wife—subsided into muddled sleep; snoring heavily, contemptuously, at the loneliness of his spouse. She, poor woman, lay awhile, silently struggling with her indignation. At length, however, her feelings growing too strong for her, she got up the better to wrestle with them.

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