Part 4 (1/2)
”Aniseed is better,” replied the Gipsy, solemnly (By the way, another and an older Gipsy afterwards told s) ”And if you've got a rat, sir, anywhere in this here house, I'll bring it to you in fivethe artist as models for the picture two very pretty rats, which he had quite ta them
”But what does the picture mean, sir?” he inquired, with curiosity
”Once upon a time,” I replied, ”there was a city in Gers and worried the cats, and bit the babies in the cradle, and licked the soup from the cook's own ladle”
”There must have been an uncoravely
”There was Millions of them Now in those days there were no Rommanichals, and consequently no rat-catchers”
”'Taint so now-a-days,” replied the Gipsy, glooet a livin' by”
”Avo And by the tione crazy, one day there came a man--a Gipsy--the first Gipsy who had ever been seen in _dovo tereed for a thousand crowns to clear all the rats away So he blew on a pipe, and the rats all followed him out of town”
”What did he blow on a pipe for?”
”Just for _hokkerben_, to hu them I suppose he had oils rubbed on his heels But when he had drawn the rats away and asked for his ive it to him So then, what do you think he did?”
”I suppose--ah, I see,” said the Gipsy, with a shrewd look ”He went and drew 'eain”
”No; he went, and this time piped all the children away They all went after him--all except one little lame boy--and that was the last of it”
The Gipsy looked earnestly at me, and then, as if I puzzled, but with an expression of perfect faith, he asked--
”And is that all _tacho_--all a fact--or is it made up, you know?”
”Well, I think it is partly one and partly the other You see, that in those days Gipsies were very scarce, and people were very , and so they made a queer story of it”
”But how about the children?”
”Well,” I answered; ”I suppose you have heard occasionally that Gipsies used to chore Gorgios' chavis--steal people's children?”
Very grave indeed was the assent yielded to this explanation He _had_ heard it a, I little thought, when I suggested to the artist your poem of the piper, that I should ever retail the story in Rommany to a tinker But who knohom he reat white rolling sea of humanity?
Did not Lord Lytton, unless the preface to Pelhayptians? and did not Christopher North also wander with the--
”Oh, little did my mother think, The day she cradled me, The lands that I should travel in, Or the death that I should dee; Or gae rovin' about wi' tinkler loons, And sic-like companie”?
”You know, sir,” said the Gipsy, ”that we have two languages For besides the Ru'lar cant, which all tinkers talk”
”_Kennick_ you mean?”