Unfortunately this speech made so favorable an impression on her that she immediately took my arm and declared her willingness to go anywhere with me, on the flattering ground that I was a perfect gentleman.

In vain did I try to persuade her that in coming up Bond Street and deserting Piccadilly, she was throwing away her last chance of a hansom: she attached herself so devotedly to me that I could not without actual violence shake her off.

At last I made a stand at the end of Old Bond Street.

I took out my purse; opened it; and held it upside down.

Her countenance fell, poor girl! She turned on her heel with a melancholy flirt of her skirt, and vanished.
Now on both these occasions I had been in the company of people who spent at least as much in a week as I did in a year.