To the barber's great mortification, when he arrived at the inn the gentleman had been called out, and had left word that he would be happy to receive his new acquaintance at six in the evening. Kucky Sarson felt half disposed to be unhappy with disappointment; for he feared that he would be unable to leave his shop at that busy hour of the evening. He was hastening homeward, and striving to banish this unpleasant feeling, when, passing by the end of a narrow street or lane, he suddenly saw the strange gentleman in close conversation with a ragged, dirty-looking female, who seemed by her uncouth garb and sun-burnt complexion to belong to the wandering race of the gypsies. The barber stopped short and gazed in astonishment at what he saw. The woman bent her keen eyes upon him; but the strange gentleman seemed too much absorbed in looking at and talking to the gypsy to be aware that he was discovered. The barber passed on to his shop, pondering much upon what he had observed.—"What in the name of prudence and propriety!" soliloquised Kucky, "can such a person have to do with a houseless out-cast and vagabond of a gypsy?" The more he thought upon it, the more he wondered; till, in the course of an hour, seeing that no one stepped into the shop, he felt so exquisitely curious to know the meaning of what he had seen, that he once more doffed his apron and shop-coat, put on his holiday covering, and sallied forth again in search of the strange gentleman's secret. Turning the first corner of the street, he suddenly ran hard against his old gossip, Davy Gregson, and nearly knocked him down in his haste. "Hey-day, Kucky!" exclaimed Davy, "what a hurry you are in!—I reckon you are posting away to see the gentleman dance with the gypsy!" Davy Gregson's exclamation operated like lightning upon the barber: he took to his heels and ran, in the direction from whence Davy came, with all the mettle he possessed. Just as he was crossing the way, however, at the end of one street with the intent to run down another, he was suddenly seized by little Bobby Sparrow, the dapper master-tailor. "What the dickens are you running so for, Kucky?" asked the little man; "you'll be too late to see the gentleman huddle the gypsy—it's all over, and——" "Huddle the gypsy!" exclaimed Kucky, "I thought he was dancing with her?" "So he was: but he fell to kissing and huddling her after that," answered Sparrow. "For Heaven's sake let me go see," cried the barber; and bolted away again at the hazard of tearing his coat, which the tailor had kept hold of. But before he had stretched one hundred yards, he was once more stopped; and this time it was by the strong and effectual gripe of gruff farmer Garbutt. "Art thou mad, Kucky Sarson?" asked the farmer, "or what is the reason that thou art scampering away at such a hare-brained rate?" "The gypsy!" gasped the barber, still striving to run,—"the gypsy and the gentleman!"