ABSTRACT
‘Biddy,’ said I, after binding her to secrecy, ‘I want to be a gentleman.’
‘Oh, I wouldn't, if I was you!’ she returned. ‘I don't think it would answer.’
(Great Expectations, ch. 17)‘My father was not a gentleman – he was too mixed to be a gentleman.’
(Kate [Dickens] Perugini, The Dickensian, 1980)