wildly.

'What are you doing? Idiotically plunging at your own sex, and
rescuing them or perishing in the attempt?' asked Mr. Idle, in a
highly petulant state.

'The One old man!' cried Mr. Goodchild, distractedly,--'and the Two
old men!'

Mr. Idle deigned no other reply than 'The One old woman, I think
you mean,' as he began hobbling his way back up the staircase, with
the assistance of its broad balustrade.

'I assure you, Tom,' began Mr. Goodchild, attending at his side,
'that since you fell asleep--'

'Come, I like that!' said Thomas Idle, 'I haven't closed an eye!'

With the peculiar sensitiveness on the subject of the disgraceful
action of going to sleep out of bed, which is the lot of all
mankind, Mr. Idle persisted in this declaration. The same peculiar
sensitiveness impelled Mr. Goodchild, on being taxed with the same
crime, to repudiate it with honourable resentment. The settlement
of the question of The One old man and The Two old men was thus
presently complicated, and soon made quite impracticable. Mr. Idle
said it was all Bride-cake, and fragments, newly arranged, of
things seen and thought about in the day. Mr. Goodchild said how
could that be, when he hadn't been asleep, and what right could Mr.
Idle have to say so, who had been asleep? Mr. Idle said he had
never been asleep, and never did go to sleep, and that Mr.