David, never the best runner, was only in time to catch Johnnie by the skirt upon the third step of the staircase, crying out, “The pig!” but Johnnie, tired of the subject, and in a provoking mood, twitched away his pinafore, crying, “Bother the pig!” and rushed up after the four who had preceded him, leaving such lumps of dirt on the edge of every step, that when Miss Fosbrook came after with Elizabeth she could not but declare that a shower was a costly article. “You see,” observed Susan, “when it’s such fine weather it puts one’s feet out of one’s head.” While Sam, Henry, and Bessie were laughing at Susan for this speech, little George trotted in, crying out, “Halty man come, Halty man come; Georgie want sweetie!” “The Gibraltar man!” cried John and Annie with one voice, and they were at the bottom of the stairs with a bound. “Oh, send him away, send him away. They’ll spend all their money, and there will be none left!” was David’s cry; while George kept dragging his eldest sister’s frock, with entreaties of “Susie, Susie, come.” “They call him the Gibraltar man, because he sells Gibraltar rock, and gingerbread, and all those things,” said Henry in explanation. “We have always dealt with him; and he is very deserving; and his wife makes it all—at least I know she makes ginger-beer—so we must encourage him.” So Henry hastened downstairs to encourage the Gibraltar man; and Susan, saying soothingly, “Yes, yes, Georgie;—never mind Davie, we’ll make up for it; I can’t vex him,” had taken the little fellow in her arms and followed. “Pigs enough here, without sending to the fair,” muttered Sam. “Please, Sam, please, Miss Fosbrook, send the Gibraltar man away, and don’t let him come,” cried David quite passionately. “Nasty man! he will come every Saturday, and they’ll always spend all their money.” “But, my friend,” said Miss Fosbrook good-humouredly, “suppose we have no right to banish the Gibraltar man?” “_I_ don’t wan’t him,” said Bessie; “it makes my fingers sticky.” “You’re no good,” said David vehemently. “I don’t like you, and I hate the Gibraltar man, taking away all our money from poor Hannah.” “Gently, gently, Davie; nobody makes you spend your money; and perhaps the poor man has children of his own who want food as much as Hannah’s do.” “Then can’t they eat the Gibraltar rock and bulls’ eyes?” Sam suggested that this diet would make them sick; to which poor little earnest David answered, that when once the pig was bought, he would give all his money for a whole month to the Gibraltar man, if he would not come for the next four weeks.