But this simulation did not long continue. As he became more conscious, he grew more agitated: he had probably shot a robber. For this he felt no remorse, and was persuading himself he would repeat the act, when he discovered that he had lost his pistols. This discovery gave him a fearful shock,--he was unarmed! Now came another dread.--Was the miscreant he had killed alone? or had he companions? Did not robbers usually congregate in bands; and might he not be pursued? But Tweasle was adopting the very best mode of avoiding such a danger, as, long before he asked himself the question, his walk had quickened into a sort of hand-gallop, which this fresh terror increased to the wild speed of utter despair. Without slackening his pace, the affrighted man had nearly reached his home, when a sharp blow across the shins brought him to the ground, and, looking up, Tweasle perceived the mendicant of the afternoon, and two other suspicious-looking fellows standing over him. He could not speak; but, turning his face downwards, stretched himself upon the earth. "_Are you going to sleep there?_" inquired the beggar with a kick that was violently anti-soporific; and, seeing that Tweasle naturally writhed under the infliction, the fellow vociferated, "Come, that didn't hurt you. It's no use shamming here." "I shan't wait about, all night for him," cried a diminutive gentleman disguised in a coalheaver's hat worn jockey-fashion, who, seizing Tweasle by the collar, lifted him from the ground, and giving him a shake that was sufficient to render any human nerves unsteady for eternity, asked the tottering man in a voice of angry expostulation, "Why the devil he couldn't stand still?" Too terrified to offer the slightest opposition, the unhappy Tweasle endeavoured to obey, which spirit of accommodation was repaid by the most scrupulous attentions. With a delicate dexterity that scarcely acquainted the owner of the abstraction, everything that his pockets contained was removed without unnecessary delay; and Tweasle was beginning to hope that the robbers would be content with their booty, when one of the fellows, anxious to have his clothes also, told him in the slang phraseology to undress, by shouting, "Come, skin yourself." "Skin _myself_!" cried Tweasle, understanding the words literally, and bounding from the place in horror of what appeared to him a refinement on even fictitious barbarity. "Skin _myself_!--You can't mean it. I couldn't do it, if you'd give me the world.--It's impossible!--Oh, heavens!" "No flash,--it won't do,--you'll undress," said the taller of the three with a calmness that thrilled his auditor. "Oh! good gentlemen," continued Tweasle, wishing to touch their hearts by saying something pathetic, "do consider I'm a married man!--think of my poor wife!--think of my poor wife!" "Carry her that 'ere with my compliments," cried the beggar, dashing his fist into Tweasle's face; an act which was received by the rest as an excellent joke.