TRANSLATION.
Once a Gipsy went to a great farmhouse as the gentleman sat at table eating. And so soon as the Gipsy looked away, the gentleman very quietly filled a cheese-cake with mustard and gave it to the Gipsy. When the mustard bit in his throat, he was half choked, and the tears came into his eyes. The gentleman asked him, “What are you weeping for now?” And he replied, “The mustard took my breath away.” The gentleman said, “I hope the mustard will give you good luck!” “Thank you, sir,” answered the Gipsy; “I’ll take care it does” (that). As soon as the gentleman turned his head, the Gipsy stole the mustard-pot with the silver spoon, and no one saw it. The next day after, that Gipsy went to the gentleman’s pig-pen, and saw there a great fine-looking pig, and sang, “I’ll see now if I can make you weep a bit.”
Now, sir, you must know that if you give a pig mustard in an apple, he can’t cry out or squeal for his life, and you can carry him away, or throw him on a waggon, and get away, and nobody will know it. And that is what the Gipsy did to the pig, with the same mustard; and as he ran it away and put it in a bag, he whispered softly into the pig’s ear, “Yesterday your master stopped my breath, and to-day I’ve stopped yours; and once your master hoped the mustard would give me good luck, and now it has given me better luck than he ever imagined.”
Gentlemen must be careful not to make sport of and play tricks on poor men.