anley's Fool, and
Sinfi Lovell's Fool, and Philip Aylwin's Fool, who went and averted
a curse from one of the heads resting down here, averted a curse by
burying a jewel in a dead man's tomb.'

'Not in this cemetery, so none o' your gammon,' said the
gravedigger, who had overheard me. 'The on'y people as is fools
enough to bury jewels with dead bodies is the Gypsies, and _they_
take precious good care, as I know, to keep it mum _where_ they bury
'em. There's bin as much diggin' for them thousand guineas as was
buried with Jerry Chilcott in Foxleigh Parish, where I was born, as
would more nor pay for emptying a gold mine; but I never heard o'
Christian folk a-buryin' jewels. But who are you?'

I felt a hand upon my shoulder, and looking round, I found Sinfi by
my side.

'Does he belong to you, my gal?'

'Yis,' said Sinfi, with a strange, deep ring in her rich contralto
voice. 'Yis, he belongs to me now--leastways he's my pal
now--whatever comes on it.'

'Then take him away, my wench. What's the matter with him? The old
complaint, I s'pose,' he added, lifting his hand to his mouth as
though drinking from a glass.

Sinfi gently put out her hand and brushed the man aside.

'I've bin a-followin' on you all the way, brother,' said Sinfi, as
we moved out of the cemetery, 'for your looks skeared me a bit. Let's
go away from this place.'

'But whither, Sinfi? I have no friend but you; I have no home.'

'No home, brother? The kairengros [Footnote] has got about
everythink, 'cept the sky an' the wind, an' you're one o' the richest
kairengros on 'em all--leastways so I wur told t'other day in
Kingston Vale. It's the Romanies, brother, as 'ain't got no home
'cept the sky an' the wind. Howsumever, that's nuther here nor there;
we'll jist go to the woman they told me on, an' if there's any truth
to be torn out of her, out it'll ha' to come, if I ha' to tear out
her windpipe with it.'

[Footnote: The house-dwellers.]

We took a cab and were soon in Primrose Court.

The front door was wide open--fastened back. Entering the narrow
common passage, we rapped at a dingy inner door. It was opened by a
pretty girl, whose thick chestnut hair and eyes to match contrasted
richly with the dress she wore--a dirty black dress, with great
patches of lining bursting through holes like a whity-brown froth.

'Meg Gudgeon?' said the girl in answer to our inquiries; and at first
she looked at us rather suspiciously, 'upstairs, she's ver