The Saint gestured at the table.
"You can see I haven't finished my drink. Nor has my lady friend."
"She can stay. It's just you that's goin'."
The Saint smiled mockingly. "It is always a mystery to me how human beings can become so misguided as to assume impossibilities. I should think anybody would know I'm not going out of here without Miss Dexter. She has an inflexible rule; namely, 'I'm gonna leave with the guy what brung me.' Namely, yours truly."
"Can the gab," Jake said. "You goin' out on your feet, or would you rather pick up teeth as you crawl out?"
Jake didn't seem to be angry, or impatient. He was merely giving the Saint a choice. Like: do you want your nails filed round or pointed?
Simon got lazily to his feet.
"Sorry, Mr. Prather," he said. "I was just getting interested — in our conversation. Be with you in a moment. The children, you know. They get annoying at times and have to be cut back to size... Jake, you shouldn't be such a naughty boy, really you shouldn't. Papa's told you before about interrupting your elders. Run along and play now, and you won't be chastised."
Jake nodded at his cohorts, and they moved at once. The Saint's first lightning move was to remove one from the fray with a short right jab that travelled no more than three inches but carried 180 pounds of muscled steel in motion behind it.
The aproned bruiser folded his bulk against the wall between the widespread feet of one of Ferdinand Pairfield's figures and sat there with a vacuous mouth and eyes which, had they been stained, could have served as church windows.