With unaffected goodwill, the two Gypsies insisted on my accepting the rabbit as a token of friendship. This I did gladly, asking no questions as to how they had come by a newly-killed rabbit. After grinding my garden axe, they both set off whistling down the road.
One day a Gypsy tinker, whom I had met a few times, took me aside, saying—
“My sister lives in the next street” (he told me the number). “She has a pony, a poor, scraggy thing, which she wants to get rid of badly. Go you and say to her—
“‘I hear you have a nice little cob to sell.’ And when she brings it round for you to look at, say—
“‘Bless my soul, do you think I’d buy a hoppy grai like dova?’” (a lame horse like that).
Presently, at that sister’s threshold, I waited for the pony to be brought round, which on arriving proved to be a miserable-looking animal indeed. The woman looked first at me, then at the pony, which limped badly, while its bones showed through its skin.
Said I, “Well, really, I didn’t expect to see quite such a wafodu kova” (wretched thing).
Readily entering into the joke, she laughed heartily. She had taken me for a dinelo gawjo (gentile simpleton), and to her astonishment I had turned out to be a Gypsy of a higher sort.
At one time I used to have frequent visits from a travelling tinker, and when his grinding-barrow was standing in my yard, I would chat with him while he was doing some little job. He was an interesting fellow who had seen something of the world. He had a remarkable knowledge of the medicinal properties of wild herbs, and would spend hours by the chalk stream in our valley, grubbing up liverwort of which he would make decoctions. One morning he was in the tale-telling mood.
“It was this very barrer what you’re looking at now. You notice there’s lots of bits of brass nailed on it for to catch the sunshine. I likes my barrer to look cheerful. Well, there was a fellow came to me with summut wrapped up in brown paper, a flat thing it was, and he says, ‘I want you to buy this here off me.’ Says I, ‘Let’s have a look at it,’ and when he opened it out, it was a fine bit of copper-plate with summut engraved on it. I asked him what the engraving was about, for you know I can’t read. He says, ‘It’s an architex business plate, that’s all, and you can have it for a shilling.’ So I bought it and nailed it on to my barrer among the other bits of brass and things. Well, happens that a parson was a-talking to me one day, and I noticed his eye lighted on this here copper-plate. Says he, looking wery serious, ‘I’m afraid this will get you into trouble, if a policeman sees it.’ ‘How’s that?’ I asked. ‘What’s wrong with the copper-plate?’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘it’s a plate for printing £5 notes. Where did you get it from?’ And I told him. You may be sure I soon had that plate off my barrer, and, turning to the parson, I says, ‘Perhaps you’ll buy it off me, for a sort of nicknack?’ And he gave me half-a-crown for it.”