on her
hair (which of course had tumbled down) before she twisted it up. This
was another common procedure on the part of the ladies of the Hole, when
heated by verbal or fistic altercation.

'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned to
speak!' growled Mr Riderhood, stooping to pick up his hat, and making
a feint at her with his head and right elbow; for he took the delicate
subject of robbing seamen in extraordinary dudgeon, and was out of
humour too. 'What are you Poll Parroting at now? Ain't you got nothing
to do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting all night?'

'Let her alone,' urged the man. 'She was only speaking to me.'

'Let her alone too!' retorted Mr Riderhood, eyeing him all over. 'Do you
know she's my daughter?'

'Yes.'

'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the part of
my daughter? No, nor yet that I won't take no Poll Parroting from no
man? And who may YOU be, and what may YOU want?'

'How can I tell you until you are silent?' returned the other fiercely.

'Well,' said Mr Riderhood, quailing a little, 'I am willing to be silent
for the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll Parrot me.'

'Are you thirsty, you?' the man asked, in the same fierce short way,
after returning his look.

'Why nat'rally,' said Mr Riderhood, 'ain't I always thirsty!' (Indignant
at the absurdity of the question.)

'What will you drink?' demanded the man.

'Sherry wine,' returned Mr Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 'if you're
capable of it.'

The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, and
begged the favour of Miss Pleasant that she would fetch a bottle. 'With
the cork undrawn,' he added, emphatically, looking at her father.

'I'll take my Alfred David,' muttered Mr Riderhood, slowly relaxing into
a dark smile, 'that you know a move. Do I know YOU? N--n--no, I don't
know you.'

The man replied, 'No, you don't know me.' And so they stood looking at
one another surlily enough, until Pleasant came back.

'There's small glasses on the shelf,' said Riderhood to his daughter.
'Give me the one without a foot. I gets my living by the sweat of my
brow, and it's good enough for ME.' This had a modest self-denying
appearance; but it soon turned out that as, by reason of the
impossibility of standing the glass upright while there was anything in
it, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr Riderhood managed to
drink in the proportion of three to one.