urs in that camp, and
Blake got spooney on a gipsy girl, and has written I don't know
how many songs on them. Didn't you hear us singing them just
now?"

"But how did you get the cart mended?" said Tom.

"Oh, the tinker patched up the shaft for us,--a cunning old
beggar, the _pere de famille_ of the encampment; up to every move
on the board. He wanted to have a deal with me for Jessy. But
'pon my honor, we had a good time of it. There was the old
tinker, mending the shaft, in his fur cap, with a black pipe, one
inch long, sticking out of his mouth; and the old brown parchment
of a mother, with her head in a red handkerchief, smoking a ditto
pipe to the tinker's, who told our fortunes, and talked like a
printed book. Then there was his wife, and the slip of a girl who
bowled over Blake there, and half a dozen ragged brats; and a
fellow on a tramp, not a gipsy--some runaway apprentice, I take
it, but a jolly dog--with no luggage but an old fiddle on which
he scraped away uncommonly well, and set Blake making rhymes as
we sat in the tent. You never heard any of his songs. Here's one
for each of us; we're going to get up the characters and sing
them about the country;--now for a rehearsal; I'll be the
tinker."

"No, you must take the servant girl," said Blake.

"Well, we'll toss up for characters when the time comes. You
begin then; here's a song," and he handed one of the papers to
Blake, who began singing--

"Squat on a green plot,
We scorn a bench or settle, oh.
Plying or trying,
A spice of every trade;
Razors we grind,
Ring a pig, or mend a kettle, oh;
Come, what d'ye lack?
Speak it out, my pretty maid.

"I'll set your scissors, while
My granny tells you plainly!
Who stole your barley meal,
Your butter or your heart;
Tell if your husband will
Be handsome or ungainly,
Ride in a coach and four, or
Rough it in a cart."

"Enter Silly Sally; that's I, for the present you see," said
Drysdale; and he began--

"Oh, dear! what can the matter be?
Dear, dear! what can the matter be?
Oh, dear! what can the matter be?
All in a pucker be I;

I'm growing uneasy about Billy Martin,
For love is a casualty desper't unsartin.
Law! yonder's the gipsy as tells folk's fortin;
I'm half in the mind for to try."

"Then you must be the old gipsy woman, Mother Patrico; here's
your part Brown."

"But what's the tune?" said Tom.

"Oh,