‘And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain’t hard at it?’ said Mr Pancks.

‘Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children, and he sits in the sun—he’ll sit down anywhere, as if it was an arm-chair—and he’ll sing, and he’ll laugh!’

‘Laugh!’ echoed Mr Pancks. ‘He looks to me as if every tooth in his head was always laughing.’

‘But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t’other end of the Yard,’ said Mrs Plornish, ‘he’ll peep out in the curiousest way! So that some of us thinks he’s peeping out towards where his own country is, and some of us thinks he’s looking for somebody he don’t want to see, and some of us don’t know what to think.’

Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping. In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue, it didn’t matter. Altro!

‘What’s Altro?’ said Pancks.

‘Hem! It’s a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,’ said Mrs Plornish.

‘Is it?’ said Pancks. ‘Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon. Altro!’

Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night, to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in at Mr Baptist’s door, and, finding him in his room, to say, ‘Hallo, old chap! Altro!’ To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright nods and smiles, ‘Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!’ After this highly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an appearance of being lightened and refreshed.