act, and manifest an interest in it.

While engaged in conversation with this family, Petulamengro asked me if
I had ever met in America with Mr ---, adding, "He is a brother-in-law of
mine."

I confess that I was startled, for I had known the gentleman in question
very well for many years. He is a man of considerable fortune, and
nothing in his appearance indicates in the slightest degree any affinity
with the Rommany. He is not the only real or partial Gipsy whom I know
among the wealthy and highly cultivated, and it is with pleasure I
declare that I have found them all eminently kind-hearted and hospitable.

It may be worth while to state, in this connection, that Gipsy blood
intermingled with Anglo-Saxon when educated, generally results in
intellectual and physical vigour. The English Gipsy has greatly changed
from the Hindoo in becoming courageous, in fact, his pugnacity and pluck
are too frequently carried to a fault.

My morning's call had brought me into contact with the three types of the
Gipsy of the roads. Of the half-breeds, and especially of those who have
only a very slight trace of the dark blood or _kalo ratt_, there are in
Great Britain many thousands. Of the true stock there are now only a few
hundreds. But all are "Rommany," and all have among themselves an
"understanding" which separates them from the "Gorgios."

It is difficult to define what this understanding is--suffice it to say,
that it keeps them all in many respects "peculiar," and gives them a
feeling of free-masonry, and of guarding a social secret, long after they
leave the roads and become highly reputable members of society. But they
have a secret, and no one can know them who has not penetrated it.

* * * * *

One day I mentioned to my old Rommany, what Mr Borrow has said, that no
English Gipsy knows the word for a leaf, or _patrin_. He admitted that
it was true; but after considering the subject deeply, and dividing the
deliberations between his pipe and a little wooden bear on the table--his
regular oracle and friend--he suddenly burst forth in the following
beautiful illustration of philology by theology:--

"Rya, I pens you the purodirus lav for a leaf--an' that's a _holluf_.
(Don't you jin that the holluf was the firstus leaf? so holluf must be
the Rommany lav, sense Rommanis is the purodirest jib o' saw.) For when
the first mush was kaired an' created in the tem adree--and that was the
boro Duvel himself, I expect