And yet not quite all,
and it was lucky for me they were not. For one morning, as I went into
the large garden which lies around the house wherein I wone, I heard by
the honeysuckle and grape-vine a familiar sound,--suggestive of the road
and Romanys and London, and all that is most traveler-esque. It was the
tap, tap, tap of a hammer and the clang of tin, and I knew by the smoke
that so gracefully curled at the end of the garden a tinker was near.
And I advanced to him, and as he glanced up and greeted, I read in his
Irish face long rambles on the roads.

"Good-morning!"

"Good-mornin', sorr!"

"You're an old traveler?"

"I am, sorr."

"Can you rakker Romanes?"

"I can, sorr!"

"_Pen yer nav_." (Tell your name.)

"Owen ---, sorr."

A brief conversation ensued, during which we ascertained that we had many
friends in common in the _puro tem_ or Ould Country. All at once a
thought struck me, and I exclaimed,--

"Do you know any other languages?"

"Yes, sorr: Ould Irish an' Welsh, an' a little Gaelic."

"That's all?"

"Yes, sorr, all av thim."

"All but one?"

"An' what's that wan, sorr?"

"Can you _thari shelta_, _subli_?"

No tinker was ever yet astonished at anything. If he could be he would
not be a tinker. If the coals in his stove were to turn to lumps of gold
in a twinkle, he would proceed with leisurely action to rake them out and
prepare them for sale, and never indicate by a word or a wink that
anything remarkable had occurred. But Owen the tinker looked steadily at
me for an instant, as if to see what manner of man I might be, and then
said,--

"_Shelta_, is it? An' I can talk it. An' there's not six min livin' as
can talk it as I do."

"Do you know, I think it's very remarkable that you can talk Shelta."

"An' begorra, I think it's very remarkable, sorr, that ye should know
there is such a language."

"Will you give me a lesson?"

"Troth I will."

I went into the house and brought out a note-book. One of the servants
brought me a chair. Owen went on soldering a tin dish, and I proceeded
to take down from him the following list of words in _Shelta_:

Theddy Fire (_theinne_. Irish).
Strawn Tin.
Blyhunka Horse.
Leicheen Girl.
Soobli Male, man.
Binny soobli Boy.
Binny Small.