I might have shed a tear or two out of love for my father, had not the thought that I was a very queer boy displaced his image.

I could not but be a very queer boy, such a lot of things happened to me.

Suppose I joined the gipsies?
My companion wished me to.

She had brothers, horse-dealers, beautiful fiddlers.

Suppose I learnt the fiddle?
Suppose I learnt their language and went about with them and became king of the gipsies?
My companion shook her head; she could not encourage this ambitious idea because she had never heard of a king of the gipsies or a queen either.