“So I was, and you a tall young slip of about twenty; well, how did you come to jin mande?”
“Why, I knew you by your fighting mug—there an’t such another mug in England.”
“No more there an’t—my old father always used to say it was of no use hitting it for it always broke his knuckles. Well, it was kind of you to jin mande after so many years. The last time I think I saw you was near Brummagem, when you were travelling about with Jasper Petulengro and—I say, what’s become of the young woman you used to keep company with?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t? Well, she was a fine young woman and a vartuous. I remember her knocking down and giving a black eye to my old mother, who was wonderfully deep in Romany, for making a bit of a gillie about you and she. What was the song? Lord, how my memory fails me. O, here it is:—
“Ando berkho Rye canó
Oteh pivò teh khavó.—
Tu lerasque ando berkho piranee
Teh corbatcha por pico.”
“Have you seen Jasper Petulengro lately?” said I.
“Yes, I have seen him, but it was at a very considerable distance. Jasper Petulengro doesn’t come near the likes of we now. Lord! you can’t think what grand folks he and his wife have become of late years, and all along of a trumpery lil which some body has written about them. Why, they are hand and glove with the Queen and Prince, and folks say that his wife is going to be made dame of honour, and Jasper Justice of the Peace and Deputy Ranger of Windsor Park.”
“Only think,” said I. “And now tell me, what brought you into Wales?”
“What brought me into Wales? I’ll tell you; my own fool’s head. I was doing nicely in the Kaulo Gav and the neighbourhood, when I must needs pack up and come into these parts with bag and baggage, wife and childer. I thought that Wales was what it was some thirty years agone when our foky used to say—for I was never here before—that there was something to be done in it; but I was never more mistaken in my life. The country is overrun with Hindity mescrey, woild Irish, with whom the Romany foky stand no chance. The fellows underwork me at tinkering, and the women outscream my wife at telling fortunes—moreover, they say the country is theirs and not intended for niggers like we, and as they are generally in vast numbers what can a poor little Roman family do but flee away before them? a pretty journey I have made into Wales. Had I not contrived to pass off a poggado bav engro—a broken-winded horse—at a fair, I at this moment should be without a tringoruschee piece in my pocket. I am now making the best of my way back to Brummagem, and if ever I come again to this Hindity country may Calcraft nash me.”