It happened for many days that the professor, being a man of early habits, arrived at our rendezvous an hour in advance of the time appointed.  As he resolutely resisted all invitation to occupy the room alone until my arrival, declaring that he had never been guilty of such a breach of etiquette, and as he was, moreover, according to his word, the most courteous man of the world in it, and I did not wish to “contrary” him, he was obliged to pass the time in the street, which he did by planting himself on the front steps or expanding himself on the railings of an elderly and lonely dame, who could not endure that even a mechanic should linger at her door, and was in agony until the milkman and baker had removed their feet from her steps.  Now, the appearance of the professor (who always affected the old Gipsy style), in striped corduroy coat, leather breeches and gaiters, red waistcoat, yellow neck-handkerchief, and a frightfully-dilapidated old white hat, was not, it must be admitted, entirely adapted to the exterior of a highly respectable mansion.  “And he had such a vile way of looking, as if he were a-waitin’ for some friend to come out o’ the ’ouse.”  It is almost needless to say that this apparition attracted the police from afar off and all about, or that they gathered around him like buzzards near a departed lamb.  I was told by a highly intelligent gentleman who witnessed the interviews, that the professor’s kindly reception of these public characters—­the infantile smile with which he courted their acquaintance, and the good old grandfatherly air with which he listened to their little tales—­was indescribably delightful.  “In a quarter of an hour any one of them would have lent him a shilling;” and it was soon apparent that the entire force found a charm in his society.  The lone lady herself made a sortie against him once; but one glance at the amiable smile, “which was child-like and bland,” disarmed her, and it was reported that she subsequently sent him out half-a-pint of beer.

It is needless to point out to the reader accustomed to good society that the professor’s declining to sit in a room where valuable and small objects abounded, in the absence of the owner, was dictated by the most delicate feeling.  Not less remarkable than his strict politeness was the mysterious charm which this antique nomad unquestionably exercised on the entire female sex.  Ladies of the highest respectability and culture, old or young, who had once seen him, invariably referred to him as “that charming old Gipsy.”

Nor was his sorcery less potent on those of low degree.  Never shall I forget one morning when the two prettiest young Italian model-girls in all London were poseeing to an artist friend while the professor sat and imparted to me the lore of the Rommany.  The girls behaved like moral statues till he appeared, and like quicksilver imps and devilettes for the rest of the sitting.  Something of the wild and weird in the mountain Italian