that loves you, and you'll soon get a letter. You'll
marry before two years, and be the mother of three children."

There was a horse going with a waggon along the road; and I saw a youth,
and asked him, "How much money?" (for the horse), and he replied to me,
"Ten pounds." I said, "Is that your horse?" "Yes." Well, a Gipsy gave
him ten pounds for the horse, and sold it for twelve pounds to a great
gentleman. It was a good black horse, with a (handsome) strong leg
(literally large), but it had a bad foot; it was the _near_ foot, and it
was a kicker. He gave it some opium medicament to keep quiet (literally
to stop there), and held his rein (_i.e_., trotted him so as to show his
pace, and conceal his faults) on the road.

At the cock-shy a gentleman came, and Wantelo halloed out, "Three sticks
for a penny, eighteen for a sixpence!" And the gentleman took a stick,
and we had five shillings for three dozen throws! The gentleman played
well, and got five cocoanuts, and took us to his carriage and gave me
three glasses of brandy, so that I was almost drunk. He was a good
gentleman, and his lady was as good as her husband.

There was another man playing; and I said, "Set the sticks more back, set
'em there; don't go further or he'll get all the things! Set 'em back!"
A Gipsy girl talked to the gentlemen (_i.e_., persuaded them to play),
and got fifteen shillings from one. And no more to-day from your dear
brother,

M.

* * * * *

One thing in the foregoing letter is worth noting. Every remark or
incident occurring in it is literally true--drawn from life--_pur et
simple_. It is, indeed, almost the _resume_ of the entire life of many
poor Gipsies during the summer. And I may add that the language in which
it is written, though not the "deep" or grammatical Gipsy, in which no
English words occur--as for instance in the Lord's Prayer, as given by Mr
Borrow in his appendix to the Gipsies in Spain {70}--is still really a
fair specimen of the Rommany of the present day, which is spoken at races
by cock-shysters and fortune-tellers.

The "Water Village," from which it is dated, is the generic term among
Gipsies for all towns by the sea-side. The phrase _kushto_ (or
_kushti_), _bak_!--"good luck!" is after "_Sarishan_!" or "how are you?"
the common greeting among Gipsies. The fight is from life and to the
life; and the "two or three pounds to pay in the morning for the horses
and asses that got impounded," in