How gipsies live.
In a solitary place near where Lorenzo lived there was an encampment of gipsies. Gipsies live much like Indians. They wander about England in small bands, getting money by begging, and selling baskets, and they build little temporary huts from time to time in solitary places, where they live for a while, and then, breaking up their encampment, they wander on till they find another place, where they encamp again.
Their ingenuity in stealing.
Sometimes, when they can not get money enough by begging and selling baskets, they will steal. They show a great deal of ingenuity in the plans they devise for stealing. In fact, they are very adroit and cunning in every thing they undertake.
At one time Lorenzo’s father went away, and one of the gipsies, named Murphy, resolved to take that opportunity to steal something from the house.
Murphy’s plan.
“We can get in,” said he to his comrade, “very easily, in the night, by the back door, and get the silver bowl. We can melt the bowl, and sell it for four or five sovereigns.”
The silver bowl which Murphy referred to was one which had been given to Lorenzo by his uncle when he was a baby. Lorenzo’s name was engraved upon the side of it.
Lorenzo used his bowl to eat his bread and milk from every night for supper. It was kept on a shelf in a closet opening from the kitchen. Murphy had seen it put there once or twice, when he had been in the kitchen at night, selling baskets.
“We can get that bowl just as well as not,” said Murphy, “when the man is away.”