w was the first to ask:

'What can it be? More trouble with him? He's in his bed-room now.'

'Mad with drink, like Dandy, perhaps,' said Mrs. Mel.

'Hark!' cried the landlady. 'Oh!'

It seemed that Old Tom was bouncing about in an extraordinary manner. Now
came a pause, as if he had sworn to take his rest: now the room shook and
the windows rattled.

'One 'd think, really, his bed was a frying-pan, and him a live fish in
it,' said the landlady. 'Oh--there, again! My goodness! have he got a
flea?'

The thought was alarming. Mrs. Mel joined in:

'Or a ------'

'Don't! don't, my dear!' she was cut short. 'Oh! one o' them little
things 'd be ruin to me. To think o' that! Hark at him! It must be. And
what's to do? I 've sent the maids to bed. We haven't a man. If I was to
go and knock at his door, and ask?'

'Better try and get him to be quiet somehow.'

'Ah! I dare say I shall make him fire out fifty times worse.'

Mrs. Hawkshaw stipulated that Mrs. Mel should stand by her, and the two
women went up-stairs and stood at Old Tom's door. There they could hear
him fuming and muttering imprecations, and anon there was an interval of
silence, and then the room was shaken, and the cursings recommenced.

'It must be a fight he 's having with a flea,' said the landlady. 'Oh!
pray heaven, it is a flea. For a flea, my dear-gentlemen may bring that
theirselves; but a b-----, that's a stationary, and born of a bed. Don't
you hear? The other thing 'd give him a minute's rest; but a flea's
hop-hop-off and on. And he sound like an old gentleman worried by a flea.
What are you doing?'

Mrs. Mel had knocked at the door. The landlady waited breathlessly for
the result. It appeared to have quieted Old Tom.

'What's the matter?' said Mrs. Mel, severely.

The landlady implored her to speak him fair, and reflect on the desperate
things he might attempt.

'What's the matter? Can anything be done for you?'

Mr. Tom Cogglesby's reply comprised an insinuation so infamous regarding
women when they have a solitary man in their power, that it cannot be
placed on record.

'Is anything the matter with your bed?'

'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