In his last remark Alma certainly hit the nail on the head. The distinction between the Gypsy and the mumper cannot be too strongly emphasized. Anyone who has known members of our old Gypsy families, such as the Boswells, Grays, Herons, Lees, Lovells, Smiths, Stanleys, and Woods, will never again make the grave error of confounding the Gypsy with the mumper.
Rising from our hollow in the sand, we walked a little way between the tents, and when Alma took the railway crossing for a ramble in the town, I betook myself to his mother’s tent. Having just aroused from sleep, the old lady was somewhat absent-minded, but she was quickly on the alert at hearing my greeting in Romany.
“What gibberish is it you’re talking, my gentleman?”
“You understand it well enough, I’m thinking, mother.”
So blank was her look, so well-feigned her ignorance, that for the nonce it seemed that after all the ancient language of the tents was a delusion and a dream.
Then methought of a plan I had tried before. Having for many years made a study of Gypsy pedigrees, I have often been able to give a temporary shock to a Gypsy’s mind by telling him the names of his great-grandfathers and of his uncles and aunts, paternal and maternal. “How came you to know all this, Mr. Hall?” my Gypsy will ask. “You certainly don’t look an old man.”
It was now my turn to pretend ignorance.
“If it’s not being very inquisitive, Mrs. Boswell, I am wondering what your maiden-name may have been?”
“That I won’t tell you, and nobody in this town knows what it was.”
“Is that really so? Fancy, no one in Blackpool knows your maiden-name.”