The stern-eyed Gipsy conversed well, entertaining his guests with ease.  After he had spoken of the excellent behaviour and morals of his tribe—­and I believe that they have a very high character in these respects—­I put him a question.

“Can you tell me if there is really such a thing as a Gipsy language? one hears such differing accounts, you know.”

With the amiable smile of one who pitied my credulity, but who was himself superior to all petty deception or vulgar mystery, he replied—­

“That is another of the absurd tales which people have invented about Gipsies.  As if we could have kept such a thing a secret!”

“It does, indeed, seem to me,” I replied, “that if you had, some people who were not Gipsies must have learned it.”

“Of course,” resumed the Gipsy, philosophically, “all people who keep together get to using a few peculiar terms.  Tailors and shoemakers have their own words.  And there are common vagabonds who go up and down talking thieves’ slang, and imposing it on people for Gipsy.  But as for any Gipsy tongue, I ought to know it” ("So I should think,” I mentally ejaculated, as I contemplated his brazen calmness); “and I don’t know three words of it.”

And we, the Gorgios, all smiled approval.  At least that humbug was settled; and the Rommany tongue was done for—­dead and buried—­if, indeed, it ever existed.  Indeed, as I looked in the Gipsy’s face, I began to realise that a man might be talked out of a belief in his own name, and felt a rudimentary sensation to the effect that the language of the Black Wanderers was all a dream, and Pott’s Zigeuner the mere tinkling of a pot of brass, Paspati a jingling Turkish symbol, and all Rommany a praeterea nihil without the vox.  To dissipate the delusion, I inquired of the Gipsy—­

“You have been in America.  Did you ever hunt game in the west?”

“Yes; many a time.  On the plains.”

“Of course—­buffalo—­antelope—­jack rabbits.  And once” (I said this as if forgetfully)—­“I once ate a hedgehog—­no, I don’t mean a hedgehog, but a porcupine.”

A meaning glance shot from the Gipsy’s eye.  I uttered a first-class password, and if he had any doubt before as to who the Rommany rye might be, there was none now.  But with a courteous smile he replied—­

“It’s quite the same, sir—­porcupine or hedgehog.  I know perfectly well what you mean.”

“Porcupines,” I resumed, “are very common in America.  The Chippeways call them hotchewitchi.”

This Rommany word was a plumper for the Gipsy, and the twinkle of his eye—­the smallest star of mirth in the darkest night of gravity I ever beheld in my life—­was lovely.  I had trumped his card at any rate with as solemn gravity as his own; and the Gorgios thought our reminiscences of America were very entertaining.

   “He had more tow upon his distaffe
   Than Gervais wot of.”