“I used to be a rat-catcher myself,” he said.  “I learned the business under old Lee, who was the greatest rat-catcher in England.  I suppose you know, of course, sir, how to draw rats?”

“Certainly,” I replied.  “Oil of rhodium.  I have known a house to be entirely cleared by it.  There were just thirty-six rats in the house, and they had a trap which held exactly twelve.  For three nights they caught a dozen, and that finished the congregation.”

“Aniseed is better,” replied the Gipsy, solemnly. (By the way, another and an older Gipsy afterwards told me that he used caraway-oil and the heads of dried herrings.) “And if you’ve got a rat, sir, anywhere in this here house, I’ll bring it to you in five minutes.”

He did, in fact, subsequently bring the artist as models for the picture two very pretty rats, which he had quite tamed while catching them.

“But what does the picture mean, sir?” he inquired, with curiosity.

“Once upon a time,” I replied, “there was a city in Germany which was overrun with rats.  They teased the dogs and worried the cats, and bit the babies in the cradle, and licked the soup from the cook’s own ladle.”

“There must have been an uncommon lot of them, sir,” replied the tinker, gravely.

“There was.  Millions of them.  Now in those days there were no Rommanichals, and consequently no rat-catchers.”

“’Taint so now-a-days,” replied the Gipsy, gloomily.  “The business is quite spiled, and not to get a livin’ by.”

“Avo.  And by the time the people had almost gone crazy, one day there came a man—­a Gipsy—­the first Gipsy who had ever been seen in dovo tem (or that country).  And he agreed for a thousand crowns to clear all the rats away.  So he blew on a pipe, and the rats all followed him out of town.”

“What did he blow on a pipe for?”

“Just for hokkerben, to humbug them.  I suppose he had oils rubbed on his heels.  But when he had drawn the rats away and asked for his money, they would not give it to him.  So then, what do you think he did?”

“I suppose—­ah, I see,” said the Gipsy, with a shrewd look.  “He went and drew ’em all back again.”

“No; he went, and this time piped all the children away.  They all went after him—­all except one little lame boy—­and that was the last of it.”

The Gipsy looked earnestly at me, and then, as if I puzzled, but with an expression of perfect faith, he asked—­

“And is that all tacho—­all a fact—­or is it made up, you know?”

“Well, I think it is partly one and partly the other.  You see, that in those days Gipsies were very scarce, and people were very much astonished at rat-drawing, and so they made a queer story of it.”

“But how about the children?”

“Well,” I answered; “I suppose you have heard occasionally that Gipsies used to chore Gorgios’ chavis—­steal people’s children?”