First off, how dare she! Isn't that just the way? Here he is, minding his own business and being perfectly respectable and not doing anything like breathing fire or writing rude things on public property (even though he'd been strongly considering both), and still! Still someone takes it upon themselves to get all high and mighty with him. This, Bartimaeus thinks, is why you should never be well-behaved in the first place. No matter how good your intentions, someone will always look at you and think 'That's a guilty party if I ever saw one.' It's simply the nature of places like this where humans and human-adjacent lifeforms are running the show. Suspicion and mean-spirited (pardon the phrasing) is the grim and natural truth of the world when nearly everyone in it is so very set on looking out only for their personal interests.

Secondly, you can't prove anything. Even if he does currently have slightly more in his pockets than he did a moment ago. Anyway, you can't blame him for what is clearly an involuntary response seeing as he's currently suffering under the effects of considerably more alcohol than can possibly be good for anyone of his current stature. Which isn't a mistake per say so much as it is a simple miscalculation and--

Where was he?

Oh. Right.

He squirms in her grip. It's dark in the stairwell and he's having a hard time focusing on anything that isn't the wobbly edges of his essence. Oh, the guise is just fine where it is but he can feel his insides meandering around like a confused flock of birds around the constant gravitational pull of the shard pulsing, pulsing, pulsing in the palm of the boy's hand. "Excuse me? Give what back? Who do you think you--" Hold on. His pinched face grows more so. The boy squints at her.

"YOU."