The taxi-drivers converged on Nell too, and she picked out the biggest one 
and haggled with him, holding up fingers and essaying a few words in 
Shanghainese. When the numbers had climbed into the right range for him, he 
spun around suddenly to face the crowd. The suddenness of the movement drove 
people back, and the meter-long bamboo stick in his hand didn't hurt either. He 
stepped forward and Nell hurried after him, ignoring the myriad tuggings at her 
long skirts, trying not to wonder which of the beggars was a Fist with a
concealed knife. If her clothes hadn't been made of untearable, uncuttable 
nanostuff, she would have been stripped naked within a block.