‘Can’t say I should, Jasper, whatever some people might wish.’
‘And the chals and chies into radical weavers and factory wenches, hey, brother?’
‘Can’t say that I should, Jasper. You are certainly a picturesque people, and in many respects an ornament both to town and country; painting and lil writing [59c] too, are under great obligations to you. What pretty pictures
are made out of your campings and groupings, and what pretty books have been written in which gypsies, or at least creatures intended to represent gypsies, have been the principal figures. I think if we were without you, we should begin to miss you.’
‘Just as you would the cuckoos, if they were all converted into barn-door fowls. I tell you what, brother, frequently as I have sat under a hedge in spring or summer time and heard the cuckoo, I have thought that we chals and cuckoos are alike in many respects, but especially in character. Everybody speaks ill of us both, and everybody is glad to see both of us again.’
‘Yes, Jasper, but there is some difference between men and cuckoos; men have souls, Jasper.’
‘And why not cuckoos, brother?’
‘You should not talk so, Jasper; what you say is little short of blasphemy. How should a bird have a soul?’
‘And how should a man?’
‘Oh, we know very well that a man has a soul.’