'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.