“You were talking about the case,” I said, “and beginning at the beginning.”
“Don’t you try to be funny, young fellow,” he said severely. “I said, where are we now?”
“Just passing Hyde Park Corner, Bill.”
“Yes, of course,” he said. “Well, look here, my lad, there’s no doubt about one thing: women, take ’em all together, are—no, I won’t say a bad lot, but they’re weak—awful weak. I’ve seen a deal on ’em at the police-courts.”
“I suppose so,” I said, as I heard Mary give a low sigh.
“They’re not what they should be, Ant’ny, by a long chalk, and the way they’ll tell lies and deceive and cheat ’s about awful, that it is.”
“Some women are bad, I daresay,” I said, in a qualifying tone.
“Some?” he said, with a short, dry laugh; “it’s some as is good. Most women’s bad.”
“That’s a nice wholesale sort of a charge,” said a passenger behind him, in rather a huffy tone.
“You mind your own business,” said Revitts sharply. “I wasn’t talking to you;” and he spoke in such a fierce way that the man coloured, while Mary leaned forward, and looked imploringly at me, as much as to say, “Pray, pray, don’t let him quarrel.”