Lumps in his bed: he was bruised by them.
He supposed he couldn't ask women to judge for themselves--they'd be shrieking--but he could assure them he was blue all down his back.

Mrs.
Mel and Mrs.Hawkshaw turned the bed about, and punched it, and rolled it.
'Ha!' went Old Tom, 'what's the good of that?
That's just how I found it.

Moment I got into bed geese began to put up their backs.' Mrs.Mel seldom indulged in a joke, and then only when it had a proverbial cast.

On the present occasion, the truth struck her forcibly, and she said: 'One fool makes many, and so, no doubt, does one goose.' Accompanied by a smile the words would have seemed impudent; but spoken as a plain fact, and with a grave face, it set Old Tom blinking like a small boy ten minutes after the whip.
'Now,' she pursued, speaking to him as to an old child, 'look here.

This is how you manage.