y?
Did not Lord Lytton, unless the preface to Pelham err, himself once tarry
in the tents of the Egyptians? and did not Christopher North also wander
with them, and sing--

"Oh, little did my mother think,
The day she cradled me,
The lands that I should travel in,
Or the death that I should dee;
Or gae rovin' about wi' tinkler loons,
And sic-like companie"?

"You know, sir," said the Gipsy, "that we have two languages. For
besides the Rummany, there's the reg'lar cant, which all tinkers talk."

"_Kennick_ you mean?"

"Yes, sir; that's the Rummany for it. A 'dolly mort' is Kennick, but
it's _juva_ or _rakli_ in Rummanis. It's a girl, or a rom's _chi_."

"You say _rom_ sometimes, and then _rum_."

"There's _rums_ and _roms_, sir. The _rum_ is a Gipsy, and a _rom_ is a
husband."

"That's your English way of calling it. All the rest of the world over
there is only one word among Gipsies, and that is _rom_."

Now, the allusion to _Kennick_ or cant by a tinker, recalls an incident
which, though not strictly Gipsy in its nature, I will nevertheless
narrate.

In the summer of 1870 I spent several weeks at Spa, in the Ardennes. One
day while walking I saw by the roadside a picturesque old tinker, looking
neither better nor worse than the grinder made immortal by Teniers.

I was anxious to know if all of his craft in Belgium could speak Gipsy,
and addressed him in that language, giving him at the same time my knife
to grind. He replied politely in French that he did not speak Rommany,
and only understood French and Walloon. Yet he seemed to understand
perfectly the drift of my question, and to know what Gipsy was, and its
nature, since after a pause he added, with a significant smile--

"But to tell the truth, monsieur, though I cannot talk Rommany, I know
another secret language. I can speak _Argot_ fluently."

Now, I retain in my memory, from reading the Memoirs of Vidocq thirty
years ago, one or two phrases of this French thieves' slang, and I at
once replied that I knew a few words of it myself, adding--

"_Tu sais jaspiner en bigorne_?"--you can talk argot?

"_Oui, monsieur_."

"_Et tu vas roulant de vergne en vergne_?"--and you go about from town to
town?

Grave and keen, and with a queer smile, the tinker replied, very slowly--

"Monsieur knows the Gipsies" (here he shook his head), "and monsieur
speaks _argot_ very well." (A shrug.) "Perhaps he knows more than h