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 argôt?
“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 argôt very well.” (A shrug.) “Perhaps he knows more than he credits himself with. Perhaps” (and here his wink was diabolical)—“perhaps monsieur knows the entire tongue!”
Spa is full not only of gamblers, but of numbers of well-dressed Parisian sharpers who certainly know “the entire tongue.” I hastened to pay my tinker, and went my way homewards. Ross Browne was accused in Syria of having “burgled” onions, and the pursuit of philology has twice subjected me to be suspected by tinkers as a flourishing member of the “dangerous classes.”
But to return to my rat-catcher. As I quoted a verse of German Gipsy song, he manifested an interest in it, and put me several questions with regard to the race in other lands.
“I wish I was a rich gentleman. I would like to travel like you, sir, and have nothing to do but go about from land to land, looking after our Rummany people as you do, and learnin’ everything Rummany. Is it true, sir, we come from Egypt?”
“No. I think not. There are Gipsies in Egypt, but there is less Rommany in their jib (language) than in any other Gipsy tribe in the world. The Gipsies came from India.”