'Anything? Yes; anything is the matter, ma'am. Hope twenty live geese inside it's enough-eh? Bed, do you call it? It's the rack! It's damnation! Bed? Ha!'
After delivering this, he was heard stamping up and down the room.
'My very best bed!' whispered the landlady. 'Would it please you, sir, to change—I can give you another?'
'I'm not a man of experiments, ma'am-'specially in strange houses.'
'So very, very sorry!'
'What the deuce!' Old Tom came close to the door. 'You whimpering! You put a man in a beast of a bed—you drive him half mad—and then begin to blubber! Go away.'
'I am so sorry, sir!'
'If you don't go away, ma'am, I shall think your intentions are improper.'
'Oh, my goodness!' cried poor Mrs. Hawkshaw. 'What can one do with him?'
Mrs. Mel put Mrs. Hawkshaw behind her.
'Are you dressed?' she called out.