"Catch her!" said the more appreciative Tom; "I don't believe she cries
four times a year. That's the best part of Gyp.; with all her faults,
there's none of your girl's nonsense about her."

Another person in the room, who had listened to the conversation, went off
at this period into a sudden fit of curiosity concerning Gypsy, and
started up-stairs to find her. This was Master Winthrop Breynton,
familiarly and disrespectfully known as Winnie. A word must be said as to
this young person; for, whatever he may be in the eyes of other people, he
was of considerable importance in his own. He had several distinguishing
characteristics, as is apt to be the case with gentlemen of his age and
experience. One was that he was five lengthy and important years of age;
of which impressive fact his friends, relatives, and chance acquaintances,
were informed at every possible and impossible opportunity. Another was,
that there were always, _at least_, half a dozen buttons off from his
jacket, at all times and places, though his long-suffering mother lived in
her work-basket. A third, lay in the fact that he never walked. He
trotted, he cantered, he galloped; he progressed in jerks, in jumps, in
somersets; he crawled up-stairs like a little Scotch plaid spider, on "all
fours;" he came down stairs on the banisters, the balance of power lying
between his steel buttons and the smooth varnish of the mahogany. On
several memorable occasions, he has narrowly escaped pitching head first
into the hall lamp. His favorite method of locomotion, however, consisted
in a series of _thumps_, beginning with a gentle tread, and increasing in
impetus by mathematical progression till it ended in a thunder-clap. A
long hall to him was bliss unalloyed; the bare garret floor a dream of
delight, and the plank walk in the woodshed an ecstasy. Still a fourth
peculiarity was a pleasing habit when matters went contrary to his
expressed wishes, of throwing himself full length upon the floor without
any warning whatsoever, squirming around in his clothes, and crying at the