ed the side gate, or rear entrance of the Hungarian cafe. Six
or seven dark and strange-looking men stood about, dressed in the uniform
of a military band. I caught their glances, and saw that they were
Romany.

"Now you shall see something queer," I said to my friend.

So advancing to the first dark man I greeted him in gypsy.

"I do not understand you," he promptly replied--or lied.

I turned to a second.

"You have more sense, and you do understand. _Adro miro tem penena mande
o baro rai_." (In my country the gypsies call me the great gentleman.)

This phrase may be translated to mean either the "tall gentleman" or the
"great lord." It was apparently taken in the latter sense, for at once
all the party bowed very low, raising their hands to their foreheads, in
Oriental fashion.

"Hallo!" exclaimed my English friend, who had not understood what I had
said. "What game is this you are playing on these fellows?"

Up to the front came a superior, the leader of the band.

"Great God!" he exclaimed, "what is this I hear? This is wonderful. To
think that there should be anybody here to talk with! I can only talk
Magyar and Romanes."

"And what do you talk?" I inquired of the first violin.

"_Ich spreche nur Deutsch_!" he exclaimed, with a strong Vienna accent
and a roar of laughter. "I only talk German."

This worthy man, I found, was as much delighted with my German as the
leader with my gypsy; and in all my experience I never met two beings so
charmed at being able to converse. That I should have met with them was
of itself wonderful. Only there was this difference: that the Viennese
burst into a laugh every time he spoke, while the gypsy grew more sternly
solemn and awfully impressive. There are people to whom mere talking is
a pleasure,--never mind the ideas,--and here I had struck two at once. I
once knew a gentleman named Stewart. He was the mayor, first physician,
and postmaster of St. Paul, Minnesota. While camping out, _en route_,
and in a tent with him, it chanced that among the other gentlemen who had
tented with us there were two terrible snorers. Now Mr. Stewart had
heard that you may stop a man's snoring by whistling. And here was a
wonderful opportunity. "So I waited," he said, "until one man was coming
down with his snore, _diminuendo_, while the other was rising,
_crescendo_, and at the exact point of intersection, _moderato_, I blew
my car-whistle, and so got both birds at on