“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, subsequently bring the artist as models for the picture two very pretty rats, which he had quite tamed while catching them.
“But what does the picture mean, sir?” he inquired, with curiosity.
“Once upon a time,” I replied, “there was a city in Germany which was overrun with rats. They teased the dogs and worried the cats, and bit the babies in the cradle, and licked the soup from the cook’s own ladle.”
“There must have been an uncommon lot of them, sir,” replied the tinker, gravely.
“There was. Millions of them. Now in those days there were no Rommanichals, and consequently no rat-catchers.”
“’Taint so now-a-days,” replied the Gipsy, gloomily. “The business is quite spiled, and not to get a livin’ by.”
“Āvo. And by the time the people had almost gone crazy, one day there came a man—a Gipsy—the first Gipsy who had ever been seen in dovo tem (or that country). And he agreed for a thousand crowns to clear all the rats away. So he blew on a pipe, and the rats all followed him out of town.”
“What did he blow on a pipe for?”
“Just for hokkerben, to humbug them. I suppose he had oils rubbed on his heels. But when he had drawn the rats away and asked for his money, they would not give it to him. So then, what do you think he did?”