time snubbed by his wife, although the
servants dare not take any liberty with him. "Do, pray, Mr Turnbull,
leave _h_us to settle these matters. Get _h_up your wine; that is your
department. Leave the room, Mr Turnbull, _h_if you please. Mortimer
and I know what we are about, without your _h_interference."

"Oh! by the Lord, I don't wish to interfere; but I wish you and your
servants not to be squabbling, that's all. If they gave me half the
_cheek_--"

"Do, pray, Mr Turnbull, leave the room, and allow me to regulate my own
_'ouse_hold."

"Come, Jacob, we'll go down into the cellar," said Mr Turnbull; and
accordingly we went.

I assisted Mr Turnbull in his department as much as I could, but he
grumbled very much. "I can't bear all this nonsense, all this finery
and foolery. Everything comes up cold, everything is out of reach. The
table's so long, and so covered with uneatables, that my wife is hardly
within hail and, by jingo, with her the servants are masters. Not with
me, at all events; for if they spoke to me as they do to Mrs Turnbull,
I would kick them out of the house. However, Jacob, there's no help for
it. All one asks for is quiet; and I must put up with all this
sometimes, or I should have no quiet from one year's end to another.
When a woman will have her way, there's no stopping her: you know the
old verse--

"A man's a fool who strives by force or skill
To stem the torrent of a woman's will;
For if she will, she will, you may depend on't,
And if she won't, she won't--and there's an end on't.

"Now let's go up into my room, and we will chat while I wash my hands."

As soon as Mr Turnbull was dressed, we went down into the drawing-room,
which was crowded with tables loaded with every variety of ornamental
articles. "Now this is what my wife calls fashionable. One might as
well be steering through an ice-floe as try to come to an anchor here
without running foul of something. It's _hard-a-port_ or
_hard-a-starboard_ every minute; and if your coat-tail _jibes_, away
goes something, and whatever it is that smashes, Mrs T always swears it
was the _most valuable_ thing in the room. I'm like a bull in a
china-shop. One comfort is, that I never come in here except when
there's company. Indeed, I'm not allowed, thank God. Sit on a chair,
Jacob, one of those spider-like French things, for my wife won't allow
_blacks_, as she calls them, to come to an anchor upon her sky-blue silk