"Don't be an ass, J.B." Tom Little strove to carry off the affair lightly; but Bindle was Rhadamanthine.
"I told yer not to," he continued, then after a pause, "Course she's got pretty 'air an' eyes, an' made yer feel funny an' all that; but you jest wait. Mrs. B. 'ad all them things, an' look at 'er now. She's about as soft-'earted as a cop is to a cove wot's 'carryin' the banner.'"*
* Walking the streets through the night
"Shut up, J.B.," said Tom Little, looking round as if seeking some loophole of escape.
"Well, sir," said Bindle with an air of resignation, "it's your funeral, but I'm sorry, I 'ope Gawd'll 'elp yer; but I know 'e won't."
Another evening Bindle had opened the proceedings by his customary "Miss an' gentlemen, I got a warnin' to give yer. There's only two things wot a cove 'as got to fight against, one is a wife in 'is bosom, an' the other is various veins in 'is legs. An' now I'll call for the story."
CHAPTER XV
A DRAMATIC ENGAGEMENT
The Night Club has neither rules nor officials; that is what makes it unique. Bindle, Dick Little and I form a sort of unofficial committee of management. No one questions our rulings, because our rulings are so infrequent as scarcely to be noticeable. One of our great trials, almost our only trial, is the suppression of Angell Herald. He is for ever proposing to introduce intimates of his own, and we are often hard put to it to find excuses for his not being allowed to do so.
One evening he scored heavily against the "committee," by bringing with him a tall man with long hair, a blue chin and an eye that spoke of a thirst with long arrears to be worked off.