After we had each taken a glass of champagne, the jockey commenced his history.
CHAPTER XLI
THE JOCKEY’S TALE—THIEVES’ LATIN—LIBERTIES WITH COIN—THE SMASHER IN PRISON—OLD FULCHER—EVERY ONE HAS HIS GIFT—FASHION OF THE ENGLISH
‘My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the one was scragg’d, and the other lagg’d.’
I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was, for the greater part, unintelligible to me.
‘I do not understand much English,’ said the Hungarian, who, having replenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away; ‘but, by Isten, I believe it is the gibberish which that great ignorant Valther Scott puts into the mouth of the folks he calls gypsies.’
‘Something like it, I confess,’ said I, ‘though this sounds more genuine than his dialect, which he picked up out of the canting vocabulary at the end of the “English Rogue,” [252] a book which, however despised,
was written by a remarkable genius. What do you call the speech you were using?’ said I, addressing myself to the jockey.
‘Latin,’ said the jockey, very coolly, ‘that is, that dialect of it which is used by the light-fingered gentry.’
‘He is right,’ said the Hungarian; ‘it is what the Germans call Roth-Welsch: they call it so because there are a great many Latin words in it, introduced by the priests, who, at the time of the Reformation, being too lazy to work, and too stupid to preach, joined the bands of thieves and robbers who prowled about the county. Italy, as you are aware, is called by the Germans Welschland, or the land of the Welschers; and I may add that Wallachia derives its name from a colony of Welschers which Trajan sent there. Welsch and Wallack being one and the same word, and tantamount to Latin.’