"No: it isn't! A bank isn't a shop, you stupid little boy!" cried Lady
Beauleigh hotly.
"Well, just as you like," said Tinker with graceful surrender. "I only
call it a shop because it's convenient."
"A boy of your age ought not to think about convenience. You ought to
have been taught to keep things clear and distinct," said Lady
Beauleigh in a heavy, didactic voice.
"Oh, it's quite clear to me, really, that a bank's a shop; but we won't
talk about it, if you're ashamed of it. After all, one doesn't talk
about trade, does one?" said Tinker with a return to his kindly but
exasperating patronage.
"Ashamed of it? I'm not ashamed of it!" said Lady Beauleigh in the
roar of a wounded lioness.
"No, no; of course not! I only thought you were! I made a mistake!"
said Tinker quickly, with an infuriating show of humouring her.
"I'm proud of it! Proud of it!" said Lady Beauleigh thickly. "And
when you grow up and understand things, you'll wish your father had
been a banker, too!"
"I don't think so," said Tinker; and he smiled at her very pleasantly.
"I'm quite satisfied with my father as he is. I'd really rather that
he was a gentleman."
"A banker is a gentleman!" cried Lady Beauleigh.
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