The String of Pearls (1850), p. 67

Ben has many good qualities, and that take him for all in all, as the man in the play says, we shan't in a hurry look upon his like again."
"And I'm sure I don't want to look upon his like again," said Mrs. Oakley; "I'd rather by a good deal keep him a week than a fortnight. He's enough to breed a famine in the land, that he is."
"Oh, bless you, no," said Ben, "that's amongst your little mistakes, ma'am, I can assure you. By the bye, what a blessed long time that fellow is coming with the rest of the beer and the other sausages—why, what's the matter with you, cousin Oakley—eh, old chap, you look out of sorts?"
"I don't feel just the the thing, do you know, Ben."
"The thing—why—why, now you come to mention it, I somehow feel as it all my blessed inside was on a turn and a twist. The devil—I—don't feel comfortable at all I don't."
"And I'm getting very ill," gasped Mr, Oakley.
"And I'm getting iller," said the beef-eater, manufacturing a word for the occasion. "Bless my soul! there's something gone wrong in my inside. I know there's murder—there's a go—oh, Lord! it's a doubling me up, it is."
"I feel as if my last hour had come," said Mr. Oakley—"I'm a—a—dying man—I am—oh, good gracious! there was a twinge!"
Mrs. Oakley, with all the coolness in the world, took down her bonnet from behind the parlour-door where it hung, and, as she put it on said,—
"I told you both that some judgment would come over you, and now you see it has. How do you like it? Providence is good, of course, to its own, and I have—"
"What—what—"
"Pisoned the half-and-half."
Big Ben, the beef-eater, fell off his chair with a deep groan, and poor Mr. Oakley sat glaring at his wife, and shivering with apprehension, quite unable to speak, while she placed a shawl over her shoulders, as she added, in the same tone of calmness she had made the terrific announcement concerning the poisoning—
"Now, you wretches, you see what a woman can do when she makes up her mind for vengeance. As long as you all live, you'll recollect me; but, if you don't, that won't much matter, for you won't live long, I can tell you, and now I'm going to my sister's, Mrs. Tiddiblow."
So saying, Mrs. Oakley turned quickly round, and, with an insulting toss of her head, and not at all caring for the pangs and sufferings of her poor victims, she
left the place, and proceeded to her sister's house, where she slept as comfortably as if she had not by any means committed two diabolical murders. But has she
done so, or shall we, for the honour of human nature, discover that she went to a neighbouring chemist's, and only purchased some dreadfully powerful medicinal
compound, which she placed in the half-and-half, and which began to give those pangs to Big Ben, the beef-eater, and to Mr. Oakley, concerning which they were
both so eloquent? This must have been the case; for Mrs. Oakley could not have been such a fiend in a human guise as to laugh as she passed the chemist's shop. Oh no! she might not have felt remorse, but that is a very different thing, indeed, from laughing at the matter, unless it were really laughable and not serious, at all. Big Ben and Mr. Oakley must have at length found out how they had been hoaxed, and the most probable thing was that the before-mentioned chemist himself told them; for they sent for him in order to know if anything could be done to save their lives. Ben from that day forthwith made a determination that he would not visit Mr. Oakley, and the next time they met lie said—
"I tell you what it is, that old hag, your wife, is one too many for us, that's a fact; she gets the better of me altogether—so, whenever you feels a little inclined for a gossip about old times, just you come down to the Tower."
"I will, Ben."
"Do; we can always find something to drink, and you can amuse yourself, too, by looking at the animals. Remember, feeding time is two o'clock ; so, now and