en in, especially
by themselves. As is also the case, in good society, with many ladies
and some gentlemen,--and much good may it do them!
There was a brief silence, during which the boy still looked wistfully
into my face, as if wondering what kind of gentleman I might be, until
his mother said,--
"How do you do with them _ryas_ [swells]? What do you tell
'em--about--what do they think--you know?"
This was not explicit, but I understood it perfectly. There is a great
deal of such loose, disjointed conversation among gypsies and other
half-thinkers. An educated man requires, or pretends to himself to
require, a most accurately-detailed and form-polished statement of
anything to understand it. The gypsy is less exacting. I have observed
among rural Americans much of this lottery style of conversation, in
which one man invests in a dubious question, not knowing exactly what
sort of a prize or blank answer he may draw. What the gypsy meant
effectively was, "How do you account to the Gorgios for knowing so much
about us, and talking with us? Our life is as different from yours as
possible, and you never acquired such a knowledge of all our tricky ways
as you have just shown without much experience of us and a double life.
You are related to us in some way, and you deceive the Gorgios about it.
What is your little game of life, on general principles?"
For the gypsy is so little accustomed to having any congenial interest
taken in him that he can clearly explain it only by consanguinity. And
as I was questioned, so I answered,--
"Well, I tell them I like to learn languages, and am trying to learn
yours; and then I'm a foreigner in the country, anyhow, and they don't
know my _droms_ [ways], and they don't care much what I do,--don't you
see?"
This was perfectly satisfactory, and as the hounds came sweeping round
the corner of the wood she rose and went her way, and I saw her growing
less and less along the winding road and up the hill, till she
disappeared, with her boy, in a small ale-house. "Bang went the
sixpence."
When the last red light was in the west I went down to the river, and as
I paused, and looked alternately at the stars reflected and flickering in
the water and at the lights in the little gypsy camp, I thought that as
the dancing, restless, and broken sparkles were to their serene types
above, such were the wandering and wild Romany to the men of culture in
their settled homes. It is f
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