better than all the rest. He liked to think that out of his adventures
in distributing Bibles in Spain, out of letters describing his work to
his employers, the Bible Society, he had made a narrative to be compared
with the fictitious life and adventures of that gentle Spanish rogue, Gil
Blas of Santillana. No wonder that he saw himself a public figure to be
treated reverently, nay! heroically. And so when he comes to consider
somebody's suggestion that the Gypsies are of Jewish origin, he relates a
"little adventure" of his own, bringing in Mr. Petulengro and the Jewish
servant whom he had brought back with him after his last visit to Spain.
He mounts the heroic figure upon an heroic horse:

"So it came to pass," he says, "that one day I was scampering over a
heath, at some distance from my present home: I was mounted upon the good
horse Sidi Habismilk, and the Jew of Fez, swifter than the wind, ran by
the side of the good horse Habismilk, when what should I see at a corner
of the heath but the encampment of certain friends of mine; and the chief
of that camp, even Mr. Petulengro, stood before the encampment, and his
adopted daughter, Miss Pinfold, stood beside him.

"_Myself_.--'Kosko divvus, {17a} Mr. Petulengro! I am glad to see you:
how are you getting on?'

"_Mr. Petulengro_.--'How am I getting on? as well as I can. What will
you have for that nokengro?' {17b}

"Thereupon I dismounted, and delivering the reins of the good horse to
Miss Pinfold, I took the Jew of Fez, even Hayim Ben Attar, by the hand,
and went up to Mr. Petulengro, exclaiming, 'Sure ye are two brothers.'
Anon the Gypsy passed his hand over the Jew's face, and stared him in the
eyes: then turning to me, he said, 'We are not dui palor; {17c} this man
is no Roman; I believe him to be a Jew; he has the face of one; besides
if he were a Rom, even from Jericho, he could rokra a few words in
Rommany.'"

Still more important than this equestrian figure of Borrow on Sidi
Habismilk is the note on "The English Dialect of the Rommany" hidden away
at the end of the second edition of "The Zincali."

"'Tachipen if I jaw 'doi, I can lel a bit of tan to hatch: N'etist I
shan't puch kekomi wafu gorgies.'

"The above sentence, dear reader, I heard from the mouth of Mr.
Petulengro, the last time that he did me the honour to visit me at my
poor house, which was the day after Mol-divvus, {18a} 1842: he stayed
with me during the greatest part of the morning