Roundabout Papers - Penn State University

Thackeraybad money? What was Jack Thriftless’s promise to pay?Having got his booty, I fancy Jack or the Major returninghome, and wife and children gathering round abouthim. Poor wife and children! They respect papa verylikely. They don’t know he is false coin. Maybe the wifehas a dreadful inkling of the truth, and, sickening, triesto hide it from the daughters and sons. Maybe she is anaccomplice: herself a brazen forgery. If Turpin and JackSheppard were married, very likely Mesdames Sheppardand Turpin did not know, at first, what their husbands’real profession was, and fancied, when the men lefthome in the morning, they only went away to followsome regular and honorable business. Then a suspicionof the truth may have come: then a dreadful revelation;and presently we have the guilty pair robbing together,or passing forged money each on his own account.You know Doctor Dodd? I wonder whether hiswife knows that he is a forger, and scoundrel? Has shehad any of the plunder, think you, and were the darlingchildren’s new dresses bought with it? The Doctor’s sermonlast Sunday was certainly charming, and we allcried. Ah, my poor Dodd! Whilst he is preaching mostbeautifully, pocket-handkerchief in hand, he is peeringover the pulpit cushions, looking out piteously forMessrs. Peachum and Lockit from the police-office. ByDoctor Dodd you understand I would typify the rogueof respectable exterior, not committed to gaol yet, butnot undiscovered. We all know one or two such. Thisvery sermon perhaps will be read by some, or morelikely—for, depend upon it, your solemn hypocriticscoundrels don’t care much for light literature—morelikely, I say, this discourse will be read by some of theirwives, who think, “Ah mercy! does that horrible cynicalwretch know how my poor husband blacked my eye, orabstracted mamma’s silver teapot, or forced me to writeSo-and-so’s name on that piece of stamped paper, orwhat not?” My good creature, I am not angry with YOU.If your husband has broken your nose, you will vowthat he had authority over your person, and a right todemolish any part of it: if he has conveyed away yourmamma’s teapot, you will say that she gave it to him atyour marriage, and it was very ugly, and what not? if he303