In like manner, _hoggu_ (_hocku_ or _honku_) _bazee_ could not fail to become _hocus bozus_, and the next change, for the sake of rhyme, would be to hocus-po- cus.
I told my ancient rambler of an extraordinary case of "huckeny pokee" which had recently occurred in the United States, somewhere in the west, the details of which had been narrated to me by a lady who lived at the time in the place where the event occurred.
"A Gipsy woman," I said, "came to a farmhouse and played huckeny pokee on a farmer's wife, and got away all the poor woman's money." "Did she indeed, rya ?" replied my good old friend, with a smile of joy flashing from his eyes, the unearthly Rommany light just glinting from their gloom.
"Yes," I said impressively, as a mother might tell an affecting story to a child.

"All the money that that poor woman had, that wicked Gipsy woman took away, and utterly ruined her." This was the culminating point; he burst into an irrepressible laugh; he couldn't help it--the thing had been done too well.
"But you haven't heard all yet," I added.

"There's more covvas to well." "Oh, I suppose the Rummany chi prastered avree (ran away), and got off with the swag ?" "No, she didn't." "Then they caught her, and sent her to starabun" (prison).
"No," I replied.
"And what did they do ?" "THEY BURNT HER ALIVE!" His jaw fell; a glossy film came over his panther-eyes.

For a long time he had spoken to me, had this good and virtuous man, of going to America.
Suddenly he broke out with this vehement answer-- "I won't go to that country--_s'up mi duvel_! I'll never go to America." It is told of a certain mother, that on showing her darling boy a picture in the Bible representing Daniel in the lions' den, she said, "And there is good Daniel, and there are those naughty lions, who are going to eat him all up." Whereupon the dear boy cried out, "O mother, look at that poor little lion in the corner--he won't get any." It is from this point of view that such affairs are naturally regarded by the Rommany.
There is a strange goblinesque charm in Gipsydom--something of nature, and green leaves, and silent nights--but it is ever strangely commingled with the forbidden; and as among the Greeks of old with Mercury amid the singing of leafy brooks, there is a tinkling of, at least, petty larceny.
Witness the following, which came forth one day from a Gipsy, in my presence, as an entirely voluntary utterance.

He meant it for something like poetry--it certainly was suggested by nothing, and as fast as he spoke I wrote it down:-- "It's kushto in tattoben for the Rommany chals.