'Don't call me a Vagabond. I may call myself one, from time to time, as a little joke – to break the ice, charm the ladies, or whatnot. All in good fun. But you must never direct that notorious epithet my way.' Jack noticed that with one hand he was rubbing the base of the other hand's thumb, where a red-hot iron, shaped like a letter V, had once been pressed against his flesh, and held down for a while, leaving a mark that itched sometimes. 'But to return to what I was trying to say, before all of your uncouth interruptions – the slightest trouble from you, lass, and I'll abandon you in Paris.'