the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met
with something that had scared him. All three going into the shop, and
watching through the window, then saw Mr Baptist, pale and agitated, go
through the following extraordinary performances. First, he was observed
hiding at the top of the steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping
up and down the street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the
side of the shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of
his retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away
altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same pace, and
with the same feint, up the street. He had gone no further up the street
than he had gone down, when he crossed the road and disappeared. The
object of this last manoeuvre was only apparent, when his entering the
shop with a sudden twist, from the steps again, explained that he
had made a wide and obscure circuit round to the other, or Doyce and
Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through the Yard and bolted in.
He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be, and his heart
seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell, as it quivered and
jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door.

'Hallo, old chap!' said Mr Pancks. 'Altro, old boy! What's the matter?'

Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well
as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. Nevertheless,
Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers
which made her all but Italian, stepped in as interpreter.

'E ask know,' said Mrs Plornish, 'What go wrong?'

'Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,' returned Mr Baptist,
imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of his
right forefinger. 'Come there!'

Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as
signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the
Italian tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's request, and
they all went into the cottage.

'E ope you no fright,' said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks
in a new way with her usual fertility of resource. 'What appen? Peaka
Padrona!'

'I have seen some one,' returned Baptist. 'I have rincontrato him.'

'Im? Oo him?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see him
again.' 'Ow you know him bad?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'It does not matter, Padrona