“It is said that, like the Red men, you gipsies are being civilised out of being.” “Its this way, sir. There’s good and bad among us. Some wander about the country, and by their depredations get a character that’s not very nice; but now we are more prosperous than the generality of our class.”
“May I enquire what is your principal source of income?” “Oh, bless you, I and my sons do a great deal in the way of horse dealing; and we don’t employ our idle time, like some of the strollers, in tinkering. We go to Ireland very often and buy horses for the French Army, and the English Government as well.”
“Will you allow me to ask whether you practice fortune-telling at all?” “Well, the fact is we don’t go in for that. But if ladies insist, we don’t object to do it. My wife and the girls tell fortunes when they are asked.”
“Given the mysteries of gipsy life, and the curiosity of the public, I suppose your camp is crowded every day since your arrival?” “Why, sir, on Whit-Monday we were so full as almost to be suffocated. The people came in droves, and the entrance was blocked up with them all the time.”
“It strikes me that I have seen her Majesty in the neighbourhood of Everton for some time past?” “Well, you see, we have been camped there, but we come from Epping Forest. The Queen visited us when we were in Dunbar, Scotland. And if we weren’t real gipsies Her Majesty would not have come to see us.”
The King at this juncture said he should be exceedingly obliged if I would put in the papers the fact that their habitation was scrupulously neat and clean, and that the sanitary arrangements were of an unexceptional character—which I told him I should have much pleasure in doing.
“There is another thing which you might mention too,” he added in a whisper. “We don’t herd together, higgledy-piggledy, like some wanderers. My wife and I pass the night in that end of the tent, and at the opposite end, which is curtained off, my boys sleep. And as for the girls, they occupy the caravan.” His Majesty then conducted me to the caravan outside, and showed me a veritable boudoir for comfort and elegance. He was careful to point out every detail of the well-appointed vehicle, and to exhibit the gee-gaws and showy dresses which the ladies wore on gala days.
“Look here, sir, some people think that we gipsies are a little loose in our morals. But I can tell you it’s nothing of the sort. We are very particular people. Our daughters’ virtue is very dear to us, and rather than see them injured we would sooner see them die.” And by the powerfully self-restrained manner of Mr. Smith, I could see that he meant what he said.
In reply to the question as to whether he really preferred gipsying to the ordinary mode of life, he said, “It’s our regular way of living, and if you gave me the grandest house, I would not give up my camp for it.”
And the Queen chimed in, “Our ancestors always lived in tents, and so shall we. I am happier as I am than if I was in a palace. Indeed, I would not live in one, and no more would my daughters.”