Presently, reassured more or less by her examination of the stranger, Nini added:
“I thought it was the ‘cops’.”
The man shrugged his shoulders. “D’you think I belong to the police? do I look like it?”
“No, you don’t,” Nini admitted; “but come, let’s have a peep at your phiz; what does this here masquerading mean, eh?”
Obeying the young woman’s demand, the other turned his face towards her; the cheeks were muffled in a great yellow silk handkerchief.
“That’s along of my dominoes,” he said; “I’ve had toothache for the last three days.”
“Well, what then?” pursued Nini.
“Why, I’m in funds to-day, especially as how it’s Monday, and I’m going on the spree ... suppose we make the bust together, eh?”
Superciliously, Nini looked her interlocutor up and down.
“Nothing doing to-day,” she told him, “I’ve got my man.”