Description
Right, on your way, brother. Out. I'm not having you in my house. Go on, hop it." 'What for? What do you mean? I haven't done anything.
'I don't know what you've done, darling, and cross my heart I don't want to know. And don't let me guess. Go on. There's nothing says I got to have one of you in here, okay? Not yet there isn't. Any moment now but not yet. So out." The last half of this was said to a retreating back.
The landlord of the Princess Beatrice, London SE1, turned to Patrick Standish and went on in a tone not much friendlier than before, 'It's getting to be a full-time job, you know, keeping them out of here. They think they can go anywhere they like these days, as if they were entitled to under the law.
No good will come. I suppose we ought to think ourselves lucky he didn't go for his lipstick." Patrick, standing up at the bar with his midday White Shield, thought among other things that the young man had shown a lot of restraint whatever he was. 'He didn't look all that peculiar to me. These days everybody has their hair in a bloody . . . .
The landlord, who had pushed up his mouth, closed his eyes and started shaking his head at Patrick's first words, let him go no further. 'It's not the look, my friend. It's the whole je ne sais quoi. You develop a feel for it this side of the counter in sheer self-preservation. No, it's not the look.' He paused and moved his eyes sideways.
'Of course, I don't know, perhaps you, er...'
