than if he himself had been a barber's block. This was all very well, but now, seriously, I was hungry, and I felt extremely disposed to fling a flower-pot at him. I had an array of these ornaments in the balcony. Just then my servant came into the room; and beckoning to this functionary I pointed out to him the gentleman at the barber's window, and bade him go down into the street and interrupt Mr. Sanguinetti's contemplations. He departed, descended, and I presently saw him cross the way. Just as he drew near my friend, however, the latter turned round abruptly and looked at his watch. Then, with an obvious sense of alarm, he moved quickly forward, but he had not gone five steps before he paused again and cast back a supreme glance at the object of his admiration. He raised his hand to his lips, and, upon my word, he looked as if he was kissing it. My servant now accosted him with a bow, and motioned toward my balcony, but Sanguinetti, without looking up, simply passed quickly across to my door. He might well be shy about looking up—kissing his hand in the street to pretty dames de comptoir: for a modest little man, who was supposed to care for nothing but bric-à-brac, and not to be in the least what is called "enterprising" with women, this was certainly a very pretty jump. And the hairdresser's wife? Had she, on her side, been kissing her finger-tips to him?
