of fourteen years asked to sing, and bursting
out with "Go it while you're young!" Then I sang the _Tragala_, which
coincided with the political views of my friends. But my grand _coup_
was in reserve. I had learned from Borrow's "Gypsies in Spain" a long
string of Gitano or Gypsy verses, such as--

"El eray guillabela,
El eray obusno;
Que avella romanella,
No avella obusno!"

"Loud sang the _gorgio_ to his fair,
And thus his ditty ran:--
'Oh, may the Gypsy maiden come,
And not the Gypsy man!'"

And yet again--

"Coruncho Lopez, gallant lad,
A smuggling he would ride;
So stole his father's ambling prad,
And therefore to the galleys sad
Coruncho now I guide."

This was a final _coup_. How the _diabolo_ I, such an innocent stranger
youth, had ever learned Spanish _Gypsy_--the least knowledge of which in
Spain implies unfathomable iniquity and fastness--was beyond all
comprehension. So I departed full of honour amid thunders of applause.

From the first day our room was the resort of all the American
ship-captains in Marseilles. We kept a kind of social hall or exchange,
with wine and cigars on the side-table, all of which dropping in and out
rather reminded me of Princeton. My friend the actor had pitched upon a
young English Jew, who seemed to me to be a doubtful character. He sang
very well, and was full of local news and gossip. He, too, was at home
among us. One evening our captain told us how he every day smuggled
ashore fifty cigars in his hat. At hearing this, I saw a gleam in the
eyes of the young man, which was a revelation to me. When he had gone, I
said to the captain, "You had better not smuggle any cigars to-morrow.
That fellow is a spy of the police."

The next day Captain Jack on leaving his ship was accosted by the
_douaniers_, who politely requested him to take off his hat. He refused,
and was then told that he must go before the _prefet_. There the request
was renewed. He complied; but "forewarned, forearmed"--there was nothing
in it.

Captain Jack complimented me on my sagacity, and scolded the actor for
making such friends. But he had unconsciously made me familiar with one
compared to whom the spy was a trifle. I have already fully and very
truthfully described this remarkable man in an article in _Temple Bar_,
but his proper place is here. He was a little modest-looking Englishman,
who seemed to me rather to lo