This much I had learned from my coachman.

But I kept a steady silence, and sat as serious as Odin when he visited the Vala, until the address ceased.

Then I said in Rommany-- "Mother, you don't know me.

I did not come here to listen to fortune- telling." To which came the prompt reply, "I don't know what the gentleman is saying." I answered always in Rommany.
"You know well enough what I am saying.

You needn't be afraid of me--I'm the nicest gentleman you ever saw in all your life, and I can talk Rommany as fast as ever you ran away from a policeman." "What language is the gentleman talking ?" cried the old dame, but laughing heartily as she spoke.
"Oh dye--miri dye, Don't tute jin a Rommany rye?
Can't tu rakker Rommany jib, Tachipen and kek fib ?" "Avo, my rye; I can understand you well enough, but I never saw a Gipsy gentleman before." [Since I wrote that last line I went out for a walk, and on the other side of Walton Bridge, which legend says marks the spot where Julius Caesar crossed, I saw a tent and a waggon by the hedge, and knew by the curling blue smoke that a Gipsy was near.