'It worn't all for you and Winnie, Hal. I ain't a-goin' to let you think better on me than I desarve. It wur partly for you, and it wur partly for my dear mammy, and it wur partly for myself. Listen to me, Hal Aylwin. When I made Winnie's dukkeripen come true I made my own dukkeripen come to naught at the same time. The only way to make a dukkeripen come to naught is to make another dukkeripen what conterdicks it come true. That's the only way to master a dukkeripen. It ain't often that Romanies or Gorgios or anything that lives can master his own dukkeripen. I've been thinkin' a good deal about sich things since I took that cuss on me. Night arter night have I laid awake thinkin' about these 'ere things, and, brother, I believe I have done what no livin' creatur ever done before—I've mastered my own dukkeripen. My mammy used to say that the dukkeripen of every livin' thing comes true at last. "Is there anythink in the whole world," she would say, "more crafty nor one o' those old broad-finned trouts in Knockers' Llyn? But that trout's got his dukkeripen, an' it comes true at last. All day long he's p'raps bin a-flashin' his fins an' a-twiddlin' his tail round an' round the may-fly or the brandlin' worrum, though he knows all about the hook; but all at wonst comes the time o' the bitin', and that's the time o' the dukkeripen, when every fish in the brook, whether he's hungry or not, begins to bite, an' then up comes old red-spots, an' grabs at the bait because he must grab, an' swallows it because he must swallow it; an' there's a hend of old red-spots jist as sure as if he didn't know there wur a hook in the bait." That's what my mammy used to say. But there wur one as could, and did, master her own dukkeripen—Shuri Lovell's little Sinfi.'
'You have mastered your dukkeripen, Sinfi?' 'Yes, I've mastered mine,' she said, with the same look of triumph on her face—'I swore I'd master my dukkeripen, brother, an' I done it. I said to myself the dukkeripen is strong, but a Romany chi may be stronger still if she keeps a-sayin' to herself "I WILL master it; I WILL, I WILL."'
'Then that explains something I have often noticed, Sinfi. I have often seen your lips move and nothing has come from them but a whisper, "I will, I will, I will."'
'Ah, you've noticed that, have you? Well then, now you know what it meant.'
'But, Sinfi, you have not told me what your dukkeripen is. You have often alluded to it, but you have never allowed me even to guess what it is.'
Sinfi's face beamed with pride of triumph.
'You never guessed it? No, you never could guess it. An' months an' months have we lived together an' you heard me whisper "I will, I will," an' you never guessed what them words meant. Lucky for you, my fine Gorgio, that you didn't guess it,' she said, in an altered tone.
'Why?'
''Cos if you had a-guessed it you'd ha' cotch'd a left-hand body-blow that 'ud most like ha' killed you. That's what you'd ha' cotch'd. But now as we're a-goin' to part for ever I'll tell you.'
'Part for ever, Sinfi?'