an
coming out of a bath, and roared for hot water for his feet, and
bellowed for the posset and warming-pan, and rolled into his bed, and
kept the whole house in motion.

And so soon as he had swallowed his cordial, and toasted his sheets, and
with the aid of his man rolled himself in a great blanket, and clapped
his feet in a tub of hot water, and tumbled back again into his bed, he
bethought him of Puddock, and ordered his man to take his compliments to
Captain Burgh and Lieutenant Lillyman, the tenants of the nearest
lodging-house, and to request either to come to him forthwith on a
matter of life or death.

Lillyman was at home, and came.

'Puddock's drowned, my dear Lillyman, and I'm little better. The ferry
boat broke away with us. Do go down to the adjutant--they ought to raise
the salmon nets--I'm very ill myself--very ill, indeed--else I'd have
assisted; but you know _me_, Lillyman. Poor Puddock--'tis a sad
business--but lose no time.'

'And can't he swim?' asked Lillyman, aghast.

'Swim?--ay, like a stone, poor fellow! If he had only thrown himself
out, and held by me, hang it, I'd have brought him to shore; but poor
Puddock, he lost his head. And I--you see me here--don't forget to tell
them the condition you found me in, and--and--now don't lose a moment.'

So off went Lillyman to give the alarm at the barrack.

CHAPTER L.

TREATING OF SOME CONFUSION, IN CONSEQUENCE, IN THE CLUB-ROOM OF THE
PHOENIX AND ELSEWHERE, AND OF A HAT THAT WAS PICKED UP.

When Cluffe sprang out of the boat, he was very near capsizing it and
finishing Puddock off-hand, but she righted and shot away swiftly
towards the very centre of the weir, over which, in a sheet of white
foam, she swept, and continued her route toward Dublin--bottom upward,
leaving little Puddock, however, safe and sound, clinging to a post, at
top, and standing upon a rough sort of plank, which afforded a very
unpleasant footing, by which the nets were visited from time to time.

'Hallo! are you safe, Cluffe?' cried the little lieutenant, quite firm,
though a little dizzy, on his narrow stand, with the sheets of foam
whizzing under his feet; what had become of his musical companion he had
not the faintest notion, and when he saw the boat hurled over near the
sluice, and drive along the stream upside down, he nearly despaired.

But when the captain's military cloak, which he took for Cluffe himself,
followed in the track of the boat, whisking,