"Did you 'ear that, guvnor?"
"I heard it," Sir Timothy acquiesced.
Billy the Tanner began to cheer up. He walked all round this
stranger.
"A toff! A big toff! I'll 'ave a drink with you, guvnor," he
declared, with a note of incipient truculence in his tone.
The barman had already reached up for two glasses but Sir Timothy
shook his head.
"I think not," he said.
There was a moment's silence. The barman made despairing signs
at Sir Timothy. Billy the Tanner was moistening his lips with
his tongue.
"Why not?" he demanded.
"Because I don't know you and I don't like you," was the bland
reply.
Billy the Tanner wasted small time upon preliminaries. He spat
upon his hands.
"I dunno you and I don't like you," he retorted. "D'yer know wot
I'm going to do?"
"I have no idea," Sir Timothy confessed.
"I'm going to make you look so that your own mother wouldn't know
you--then I'm going to pitch you into the street," he added, with
an evil grin. "That's wot we does with big toffs who come
'anging around 'ere."
"Do you?" Sir Timothy said calmly. "Perhaps my friend may have
something to say about that."
The man of war was beginning to be worked up.
"Where's your big friend?" he shouted. "Come on! I'll take on
the two of you."
The man who had met Sir Timothy in the street had risen to his
feet.
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