u're 'deep' Gipsy, I
see, sir--that's what _you_ are."

"_Mo rov a jaw_; _mo rakker so drovan_?" I answered. "Don't talk so
loud; do you think I want all the Gorgios around here to know I talk
Gipsy? Come in; _jal adree the ker and pi a curro levinor_."

The tinker entered. As with most Gipsies there was really, despite the
want of "education," a real politeness--a singular intuitive refinement
pervading all his actions, which indicated, through many centuries of
brutalisation, that fountain-source of all politeness--the Oriental. Many
a time I have found among Gipsies whose life, and food, and dress, and
abject ignorance, and dreadful poverty were far below that of most
paupers and prisoners, a delicacy in speaking to and acting before
ladies, and a tact in little things, utterly foreign to the great
majority of poor Anglo-Saxons, and not by any means too common in even
higher classes.

For example, there was a basket of cakes on the table, which cakes were
made like soldiers in platoons. Now Mr Katzimengro, or Scissorman, as I
call him, not being familiar with the anatomy of such delicate and
winsome maro, or bread, was startled to find, when he picked up one
biscuit de Rheims, that he had taken a row. Instantly he darted at me an
astonished and piteous glance, which said--

"I cannot, with my black tinker fingers, break off and put the cakes back
again; I do not want to take all--it looks greedy."

So I said, "Put them in your pocket." And he did so, quietly. I have
never seen anything done with a better grace.

On the easel hung an unfinished picture, representing the Piper of
Hamelin surrounded by rats without number. The Gipsy appeared to be much
interested in it.

"I used to be a rat-catcher myself," he said. "I learned the business
under old Lee, who was the greatest rat-catcher in England. I suppose
you know, of course, sir, how to _draw_ rats?"

"Certainly," I replied. "Oil of rhodium. I have known a house to be
entirely cleared by it. There were just thirty-six rats in the house,
and they had a trap which held exactly twelve. For three nights they
caught a dozen, and that finished the congregation."

"Aniseed is better," replied the Gipsy, solemnly. (By the way, another
and an older Gipsy afterwards told me that he used caraway-oil and the
heads of dried herrings.) "And if you've got a rat, sir, anywhere in
this here house, I'll bring it to you in five minutes."

He did, in fact,