Into the midst of this fray,
Mr. and Mrs. Tetterby both precipitated themselves with great
ardour, as if such ground were the only ground on which they could
now agree; and having, with no visible remains of their late soft-
heartedness, laid about them without any lenity, and done much
execution, resumed their former relative positions.
"You had better read your paper than do nothing at all," said Mrs.
Tetterby.
"What's there to read in a paper?" returned Mr. Tetterby, with
excessive discontent.
"What?" said Mrs. Tetterby. "Police."
"It's nothing to me," said Tetterby. "What do I care what people
do, or are done to?"
"Suicides," suggested Mrs. Tetterby.
"No business of mine," replied her husband.
"Births, deaths, and marriages, are those nothing to you?" said
Mrs. Tetterby.
"If the births were all over for good, and all to-day; and the
deaths were all to begin to come off to-morrow; I don't see why it
should interest me, till I thought it was a coming to my turn,"
grumbled Tetterby. "As to marriages, I've done it myself. I know
quite enough about THEM."
To judge from the dissatisfied expression of her face and manner,
Mrs. Tetterby appeared to entertain the same opinions as her
husband; but she opposed him, nevertheless, for the gratification
of quarrelling with him.
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