And, still more confused, she answered in English,—
“Why, sir, you be upon the road now!”
“It seems to me, old lady,” remarked the younger professor, “that you understand Romany very well for one who has been for forty years in the Methodist communion.”
It may be observed that he here confounded washing with worshiping.
The face of the true believer was at this point a fine study. All her confidence had deserted her. Whether she thought we were of her kind in disguise, or that, in the unknown higher world of respectability, there might be gypsies of corresponding rank, even as there might be gypsy angels among the celestial hierarchies, I cannot with confidence assert. About a week ago a philologist and purist told me that there is no exact synonym in English for the word flabbergasted, as it expresses a peculiar state of bewilderment as yet unnamed by scholars, and it exactly sets forth the condition in which our virtuous poverty appeared. She was, indeed, flabbergasted. Cornix scorpum rapuit,—the owl had come down on the rabbits, and lo! they had fangs. I resumed,—
“Now, old lady, here is a penny. You are a very poor person, and I pity you so much that I give you this penny for your poverty. But there is a pocketful
where this came from, and you shall have the lot if you’ll rakker,”—that is, talk gypsy.
And at that touch of the Ithuriel spear the old toad flashed up into the Romany devil, as with gleaming eyes and a witch-like grin she cried in a mixture of gypsy and tinker languages,—
“Gents, I’ll have tute jin when you tharis mandy you rakker a reg’lar fly old bewer.” Which means, “Gentlemen, I’ll have you know, when you talk to me, you talk to a reg’lar shrewd old female thief.”
The face of the elder professor was a study of astonishment for Lavater. His fingers relaxed their grasp of the shilling, his hand was drawn from his pocket, and his glance, like Bill Nye’s, remarked: “Can this be?” He tells the story to this day, and always adds, “I never was so astonished in my life.” But the venerable washerwoman was also changed, and, the mask once thrown aside, she became as festive as a witch on the Brocken. Truly, it is a great comfort to cease playing a part, particularly a pious one, and be at home and at ease among your like; and better still if they be swells. This was the delight of Anderson’s ugly duck when it got among the swans, “and, blest sensation, felt genteel.” And to show her gratitude, the sorceress, who really seemed to have grown several shades darker, insisted on telling our fortunes. I think it was to give vent to her feelings in defiance of the law that she did this; certain it was that just then, under the circumstances, it was the only way available in which the law could be broken. And as it was, indeed, by heath and hill that the priestess of the hidden spell bade the Palmer from over the sea hold out his palm. And she began in the usual sing-song tone, mocking the style of