"Didn't I tell you it would do you good? Now you feel another man."
Then she continued, in a tone which Bertie, if he had the senses about him, would have called wheedling--
"Anybody can see that you're a gentleman, and not used to such a place as this. You are a little gentleman, ain't you now?"
Bertie took another drink before he replied. The steaming hot peppermint was restoring him to his former heroic state of mind.
"I should think I am a gentleman; I should like to see anybody say I wasn't."
Either this remark, or the manner of its delivery, made Mr. Jenkins laugh.
"Oh lor!" he said, "here's a three-foot-sixer!"
"Never mind him, my dear," observed the lady, "he knows no better. I knows a gentleman when I sees one, and directly I set eyes on you I says, 'he's a gentleman he is.' And did they rob you of your money?"
"Some one's robbed me of five pounds."
This was not said in quite such a heroic tone as the former remark. The memory of that five pounds haunted him.