Colin's first step was to see to the safety of his friend, Veriquear. He and Miss Sower-soft had already been fished out of the pond without rod, line, or net, by the surrounding spectators, and now stood upon the bank, like a triton and a mermaid just emerged from their palaces under the flood. The latter-named of the two was conveyed into the tavern, and put to bed, while the former was induced, at the representations of Colin, to walk rapidly home with the enraged Mrs. Veriquear on his arm. Colin himself undertaking the charge of the young Veriquears, and drawing them down in the basket-coach at some short distance behind. Peter Veriquear naturally enough employed the whole time occupied in their journey home by explaining to his spouse the origin, decline, and fall, of the history of this adventure. A statement which Colin afterwards so far corroborated as to leave Mrs. Veriquear entirely convinced, not only of her husband's innocence of any criminal intention, but satisfied that a capital practical joke had been played upon two individuals most richly deserving of it. As to the unexpected appearance of the worthy couple in town within so comparatively short a time of Mr. Palethorpe's former inglorious expedition, it is to be accounted for upon the same principle as are many other matters of equal importance: that is, according to a certain principle of curiosity, which is supposed to exist pretty largely in every human breast, but especially in the bosoms of the fair. And although, strictly speaking, Miss Sowersoft could not be termed one of the fair either in her complexion or her dealings, yet she so far came under that category touching the article of curiosity, that I much doubt whether Dame Nature ever was blessed with another daughter in whom this virtue shone more conspicuously.