nd taverns, and danced _pas
seul_ all over the Roman empire, even unto Spain, behaving so gypsily
that wise men have conjectured that they were gypsies in very truth. And
who shall say they were not? For it is possible that prehistorically,
and beyond all records of Persian Luri and Syrian Ballerine and Egyptian
Almeh, there was all over the East an outflowing of these children of art
from one common primeval Indian stock. From one fraternity, in Italy, at
the present day, those itinerant pests, the hand-organ players, proceed
to the ends of the earth and to the gold-diggings thereof, and time will
yet show that before all time, or in its early dawn, there were root-born
Romany itinerants singing, piping, and dancing unto all the known world;
yea, and into the unknown darkness beyond, _in partibus infidelium_.

A gentleman who was in our party had been long in the East. I had known
him in Alexandria during the carnival, and he had lived long time _outre
mer_, in India. Hearing me use the gypsy numerals--_yeck_, _dui_,
_trin_, _shtor_, _panj_,--he proceeded to count in Hindustani or Persian,
in which the same words from one to ten are almost identical with Romany.
All of this was carefully noted by the old gypsy mother,--as, also, that
my friend is of dark complexion, with sparkling black eyes. Reduced in
dress, or diluted down to worn corduroy and a red tie, he might easily
pass muster, among the Sons of the Road, as one of them.

And now the ladies must, of course, have their fortunes told, and this, I
could observe, greatly astonished the gypsies in their secret souls,
though they put a cool face on it. That we, ourselves, were some kind of
a mysterious high-caste Romany they had already concluded, and what faith
could we put in _dukkerin_? But as it would indubitably bring forth
shillings to their benefit, they wisely raised no questions, but calmly
took this windfall, which had fallen as it were, from the skies, even as
they had accepted the beer, which had come, like a providential rain,
unto them, in the thirst of a dry journey.

It is customary for all gypsy sorceresses to take those who are to be
fortune-told aside, and, if possible, into a room by themselves. This is
done partly to enhance the mystery of the proceeding, and partly to avoid
the presence of witnesses to what is really an illegal act. And as the
old sorceress led a lady into the little parlor, the gypsy man, whose
name was Mat, glanced