"Gentle! You don't know Mrs. B., miss, I mean mum. When Mrs. B.'s at one end o' the broom an' you're within range o' the dust she raises, it's nippy you got to be, not gentle."
Mrs. Little laughed.
It was a fortnight after the events at Mr. Hearty's house that had led up to Millie's leaving home, and Bindle was seated with the Littles in their new flat in Chelsea Palace Mansions.
"Yes," continued Bindle, after a pause, "them two love-birds is engaged, and Charlie Dixon's enlisted, an' Millie's as proud as an 'en wot's laid an egg. 'Earty's a different man; but it's Mrs. B. wot does me. She'd take the edge orf a chisel. Gentle! I'd like to meet the man 'oo'd got the pluck to try it on wi' Mrs. B." And Bindle laughed good-humouredly.
"An' to think," continued Bindle, looking quizzically from Dick Little to his wife, "to think that I 'elped you two to get tied up."
Mrs. Little laughed gaily, and Bindle drank deeply of a large glass of ale at his elbow.
"I'm afraid you're a terrible misogynist, Mr. Bindle," said Mrs. Little.
"A wot, mum?" queried Bindle, with corrugated brow.
"A woman-hater," explained Little.
"There you're wrong, mum, if yer'll allow me to say so; I don' 'ate women."