"What are you thinking of, brother?"

"Would it not be a rum thing if divine and devilish were originally one
and the same word?"

"It would, brother, it would--"

* * * * *

From this time I had frequent interviews with Jasper, sometimes in his
tent, sometimes on the heath, about which we would roam for hours,
discoursing on various matters. Sometimes mounted on one of his horses,
of which he had several, I would accompany him to various fairs and
markets in the neighbourhood, to which he went on his own affairs, or
those of his tribe. I soon found that I had become acquainted with a
most singular people, whose habits and pursuits awakened within me the
highest interest. Of all connected with them, however, their language
was doubtless that which exercised the greatest influence over my
imagination. I had at first some suspicion that it would prove a mere
made-up gibberish; but I was soon undeceived. Broken, corrupted, and
half in ruins as it was, it was not long before I found that it was an
original speech, far more so, indeed, than one or two others of high name
and celebrity, which, up to that time, I had been in the habit of
regarding with respect and veneration. Indeed many obscure points
connected with the vocabulary of these languages, and to which neither
classic nor modern lore afforded any clue, I thought I could now clear up
by means of this strange broken tongue, spoken by people who dwelt
amongst thickets and furze bushes, in tents as tawny as their faces, and
whom the generality of mankind designated, and with much semblance of
justice, as thieves and vagabonds. But where did this speech come from,
and who were they who spoke it? These were questions which I could not
solve, and which Jasper himself, when pressed, confessed his inability to
answer. "But, whoever we be, brother," said he, "we are an old people,
and not what folks in general imagine, broken Gorgios; and, if we are not
Egyptians, we are at any rate Rommany Chals!"

"Rommany Chals! I should not wonder after all," said I, "that these
people had something to do with the founding of Rome. Rome, it is said,
was built by vagabonds; who knows but that some tribe of the kind settled
down thereabouts, and called the town which they built after their name?
but whence did they come originally? ah! there is the difficulty." {169a}

But abandoning these questions, which at that time were far too profound
for me, I went on studying the l