“Merely go out to make a fool of him, brother, I assure you.”

“But such proceedings really have an odd look, Ursula.”

“Amongst gorgios, very so, brother.”

“Well, it must be rather unpleasant to lose one’s character even amongst gorgios, Ursula; and suppose the officer, out of revenge for being tricked and duped by you, were to say of you the thing that is not, were to meet you on the race-course the next day, and boast of receiving favours which he never had, amidst a knot of jeering militia-men, how would you proceed, Ursula? would you not be abashed?”

“By no means, brother; I should bring my action of law against him.”

“Your action at law, Ursula?”

“Yes, brother; I should give a whistle, whereupon all one’s cokos and batus, and all my near and distant relations, would leave their fiddling, dukkerin, and horse-dealing, and come flocking about me.  ’What’s the matter, Ursula?’ says my coko.  ‘Nothing at all,’ I replies, ’save and except that gorgio, in his greens and his Lincolns, says that I have played the . . . with him.’  ‘Oho, he does, Ursula,’ says my coko; ’try your action of law against him, my lamb,’ and he puts something privily into my hands; whereupon I goes close up to the grinning gorgio, and staring him in the face, with my head pushed forward, I cries out:  ’You say I did what was wrong with you last night when I was out with you abroad?’ ‘Yes,’ says the local officer, ‘I says you did,’ looking down all the time.  ‘You are a liar,’ says I, and forthwith I breaks his head with the stick which I holds behind me, and which my coko has conveyed privily into my hand.”

“And this is your action at law, Ursula?”

“Yes, brother, this is my action at club-law.”

“And would your breaking the fellow’s head quite clear you of all suspicion in the eyes of your batus, cokos, {301} and what not?”

“They would never suspect me at all, brother, because they would know that I would never condescend to be over intimate with a gorgio; the breaking the head would be merely intended to justify Ursula in the eyes of the gorgios.”

“And would it clear you in their eyes?”

“Would it not, brother?  When they saw the blood running down from the fellow’s cracked poll on his greens and Lincolns, they would be quite satisfied; why, the fellow would not be able to show his face at fair or merry-making for a year and three quarters.”

“Did you ever try it, Ursula?”

“Can’t say I ever did, brother, but it would do.”

“And how did you ever learn such a method of proceeding?”

“Why, ’tis advised by gypsy liri, {302a} brother.  It’s part of our way of settling difficulties amongst ourselves; for example, if a young Roman were to say the thing which is not respecting Ursula and himself, Ursula would call a great meeting of the people, who would all sit down in a ring, the young fellow amongst them; a coko would then put a stick in Ursula’s hand, who would then get up and go to the young fellow, and say, ‘Did I play the . . . with you?’ and were he to say ‘Yes,’ she would crack his head before the eyes of all.”