The rest of the crowd were on his heels, and Curly, thrusting his way through, burst out hotly.
"Hollins says a gentleman is a man with shiny pants and a stove-pipe hat. What do you say, Jack?"
"Bedad! I on'y knoo one gintlemen," cried Pat, "an' he weren't one at all at all."
"I see's a gentleman once," said Red Bill, "an' he had a bit er glass stuck in his eye."
"When you-alls says gentleman," drawled Broncho, "you mean the real brand, I surmise; for there's a greevious number o' gents a-waltzin' around puttin' on frills an' bluffin' they're the thoroughbred article, which same soon bogs down in one's eestimation as plumb low an' ornery. What you-alls call gentlemen is gettin' 'most rar' as buffaloes in these here wide-spread an' high-flung times; but when you does cut their trails, you can bet a whole team you're goin' to be duly impressed tharby."
"A gentleman's a cove wi' clean 'ands, 'coss he don't work," shouted Jimmy Green excitedly from the edge of the crowd.
"You shut yer dirty 'ead! 'Oo asked you ter talk when able seamen's around?" roared the cockney furiously. "Give that byby-face er clout, will ye, Ben?"
Jimmy Green got his clout and retired from the contest.
"A gentleman's a sport who can sit down to a game o' poker an' lose his dollars smiling," asserted the gambler.
"A gentleman's a tenderfoot who trails round buyin' salted claims," pronounced old Ben.