Can you cut the stick?
a gypsy would understand them to signify—
... Are you a master of the Romany tongue?
Can you hold your own in a lav-chingaripen, or argument, in that language?
... Are you a master of the fiddle?
... Are you man enough to “face the music,” hear your sentence and do your bit without flinching?
... Are you qualified to earn your living as a gypsy? For if you cannot in one way or another “chin the cosh” to some purpose, on occasion, then you will never be successful on the road.
The Romany tongue being no exception to the rule that idioms are one of the principal stumbling blocks to students of languages other than their own.
Around us, about the fair ground, weird lights now glimmered, moved and disappeared, appeared again, wandered and went out, fires here and there flared up for a minute, died down, flickered and left a glow which dimly illuminated in an eerie fashion caravan, framework, and the jumble of preparation for the morrow’s business.