Presently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious that they will all be glad to get rid of him. Some clothes are got together for him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and his present dress being composed of blankets. Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent dislike were finding him out somewhere in his sleep and expressing itself to him, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by his daughter to sit up in bed.

“Well, Riderhood,” says the doctor, “how do you feel?”

He replies gruffly, “Nothing to boast on.” Having, in fact, returned to life in an uncommonly sulky state.

“I don’t mean to preach; but I hope,” says the doctor, gravely shaking his head, “that this escape may have a good effect upon you, Riderhood.”

The patient’s discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible; his daughter, however, could interpret, if she would, that what he says is, he “don’t want no Poll-Parroting.”

Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (with his daughter’s help) exactly as if he had just had a Fight.

“Warn’t it a steamer?” he pauses to ask her.

“Yes, father.”

“I’ll have the law on her, bust her! and make her pay for it.”

He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping to examine his arms and hands, as if to see what punishment he has received in the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowly gets them on, with an appearance of great malevolence towards his late opponent and all the spectators. He has an impression that his nose is bleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, and looks for the result, in a pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening that incongruous resemblance.

“Where’s my fur cap?” he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled his clothes on.

“In the river,” somebody rejoins.

“And warn’t there no honest man to pick it up? O’ course there was though, and to cut off with it arterwards. You are a rare lot, all on you!”

Thus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of his daughter, with special ill-will, a lent cap, and grumbling as he pulls it down over his ears. Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon her, and growling, “Hold still, can’t you? What! You must be a staggering next, must you?” he takes his departure out of the ring in which he has had that little turn-up with Death.