“Ja wohl! Even worse than German itself,” I answered.
Just then there came up to us a gypsy girl whom I knew, with a basket of flowers, and asked me in Gypsy to buy some; but I said, “Parraco pen, jā vrī, mandy kāms kek ruzhia kedívvus”—Thank you, sister, no flowers to-day—and she darted away.
“Did you understand that?” I inquired.
“No; what was it?”
“Gitano—gypsy.”
“But how in Heaven’s name,” cried the girl, “could she know that you spoke Gitano?”
“Because I am,” I replied slowly and grimly, “the chief of all the gypsies in England, the boro Romany rye and President of the Gypsy Society. Subscription one pound per annum, which entitles you to receive the journal for one year,
and includes postage. Behold in me the gypsy king, whom all know and fear! I shall be happy to put your names down as subscribers.”
At this appalling announcement, which sounded like an extract from a penny dreadful, my two romantic friends looked absolutely bewildered. They seemed as if they had read in novels how mysterious gypsy chiefs cast aside their cloaks, revealing themselves to astonished maidens, and as I had actually spoken Gitano to a gypsy in their hearing, it must be so. They had come for wool with all their languages, poor little souls! and gone back shorn. The elder said something about their having just come to Brighton for six hours’ frolic, and so they departed. They had had their spree.
I have often wondered what under the sun they could have been. Attachés of an opera company—ladies’-maids who had made the grand tour—who knows? A mad world, my masters!