CHAPTER XII
THE GYPSY OF THE TOWN
In the sunny forenoon I was walking in one of the airy suburbs of Nottingham, and, passing by the entrance to some livery stables, I noticed on a sign-board in prominent yellow letters on a black ground the surname of Boss. This it was that brought me to a standstill in front of the large doors in a high wall. “A Romany name,” I said to myself. “I ought to find a Gypsy here;” and, pushing open one of the doors, I saw before me an office with masses of brown wallflower abloom beneath a wide-open window.
“Come in,” said a mellow voice, in response to my knock at the little door in the porch, and, entering, I was confronted by a handsome man of fifty, evidently the master of the establishment, neatly dressed, well groomed, and unmistakably Romany.
“Mr. Boss?”
“That’s so.”
“Romanitshel tu shan?” (You are a Gypsy?)
“Âvali, baw. Av ta besh tălê” (Yes, mate. Come and sit down.) The words were accompanied by a low, musical laugh that was pleasant to hear. He then conducted me to a garden seat where we sat and talked in the May sunshine. Generally my companion would use the inflected dialect of the old-time Gypsies, but at intervals he dropped into the pogado tshib, the “broken language,” as spoken by the average English Gypsy of to-day. For which lapses he apologized: “I wonder what my old dad would say to hear me rokerin like a posh-rat?” (talking like a half-breed). “One of the old roots was my daddy, who could talk for hours in nothing but ‘double-words’” (i.e. inflected Romany). “There were the ‘double-words’ and the other way—the broken language. Some of us young upstarts never picked up all the ‘double-words’ our parents used, and now the poor old language is fast going to pieces. What with these Gypsy novels and their bits of Romany talk—my girl reads them to me—why, everybody is getting to know it. I once heard a gentleman say that our language was a made-up gibberish. But he was wrong. It’s a real language, and an old one at that. But, as I was saying, it’s getting blown very much nowadays. Why, down in Kent, Surrey, and Sussex there are whole villages where you can hear Romany talked on all sides of you. The little shopkeepers know it. The publicans can roker (talk Gypsy) a bit. The stable-boys throw it at one another. And you can’t stir in the lanes without meeting a kiddie with the eyes and hair of a Gypsy—blest if you can.”
Noticing my flow of the kawlo tshib (black language, i.e. Romany), Boss tapped me familiarly on the knee: “I can’t reckon you up at all, rashai (parson). How have you picked it all up? Have you been sweet on a Gypsy girl, or have you romer’d yek?” (married one).
Then with all a Gypsy’s restlessness, he sprang up and led me to his villa residence over the way, where, apologizing for the absence of his wife, he introduced me to his daughter, a tall girl of twenty or more, gentle, refined-looking, with fathomless Gypsy eyes and an olive tint in her cheeks.
“I’m going to take the rashai for a drive,” said he. “We’ll be back for tea.”