“Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must take it with us or we find it not.”—Emerson.

HITHERTO, the injunction, “Seek, and ye shall find,” would appear to have been construed with sinistral intention of seeking to discredit the gypsy, by most of those who have professed to give an insight to Romany life, presuming, of course, that the word-pictures presented by them have described their impressions and have not been filched ideas served up anew.

This seemingly ungenerous observation is warranted by the fact that the justifiably suspicious attitude of the gypsy has in all but a few noteworthy instances kept the gorgio at a distance, and it may be safely inferred that no true description or estimate of Romany life and character is possible excepting as the result of an admitted friendship with the people.

Unlovable features exist in every community—gypsy or otherwise—and unfortunately, perhaps, for the reputation of the gypsies, their inaccessibility has in most cases necessitated the employment by the gorgio writer of “narrow-angle” vision (to use a photographic simile), the inevitable result of which has been that their unattractive qualities loom large in the foreground, and upon these attention is focussed, while the real picture in the rear is obliterated or rendered indistinguishable.

Many of the Romany folk are unable to read, which fact, in conjunction with their manner of living, places them at a great disadvantage with respect to the expression of their ideas on many topics, but that they appreciate the beautiful in nature, have a crude philosophy, and decided opinions on equity may be gathered from the following incidents and conversational anecdotes, which I give with colloquialisms verbatim.

One evening, as the setting sun was transforming the western horizon into a panorama of wonderful colour-blending, I came upon a young gypsy woman standing upon a slight eminence evidently watching the glorious sky. Just as I came up to her, a motor vehicle whizzed past on the road near to us. The gypsy turned to view the begoggled occupants and, perceiving me, blurted out—

“What do you think they look like?” while her lip curved and a look of intense contempt came into her face for the modern man and woman in the car, who were whisking through space, raising clouds of dust and leaving behind, both literally and figuratively, a nasty taste in one’s mouth. Turning again to the magnificent sky picture she remarked as though she were a different woman:

“I say, ain’t it lovely!”

I expressed my agreement with her in appreciating the lovely scene, but soon descended to more mundane matters by asking if she had seen anything of a particular branch of the Vardomescro family, for if they were, as I supposed, in the vicinity, I intended to visit the camp. She replied that she thought they must have moved before she came to the spot last evening. However, I searched around with the hope of finding some sign that would enable me to ascertain their whereabouts. I soon found what may be termed their notice of change of address, but as the arrangement of sticks and leaves had been to some extent disturbed,—presumably by some wandering animal,—it was a little difficult to decipher, nevertheless there was sufficient to indicate that they had gone about two miles away to the north.

As it was now too late in the evening to set out I decided to postpone my visit until the morrow, which, judging from the stratus clouds about the setting sun, would be fine.

In the morning, after putting up a few sandwiches, in case I was unable to discover my friends, I set out for the locality in which I expected to find them. Failing to observe any indication of their presence I sat down and listened intently, having many a time located a camp by the noise of children playing, the sound of wood being chopped or broken for the fire and so on, but now nothing broke the silence to guide me; I concluded, therefore, that they had again gone on, but as I had not found the site of their last camp I had little hope of tracing them and was thinking of returning when, at less than a hundred yards distant, I saw a member of the family I had been seeking,—a young woman upon whom had been bestowed the name of Sinfai Vardomescro—known to the gorgio as Miss Cooper. She informed me that the remainder of the family were away but might return at any minute, that she was just going to fetch a bucket of water and would be back at the camp in a few minutes. She then went on for the water while I set off for the tents, the position of which she had pointed out. Upon reaching the camp I found a seat on an old box and, awaiting events, had nothing to do but think.

The gypsies being uppermost in my mind, I experienced a sensation of something akin to envy as I ruminated,—“it was true Science was a meaningless word to them, literature equally a term without signification, the existence of arts, manufactures and commerce was but dimly realized by them, and yet,—did they not enjoy a fuller freedom than I,—did they not escape the cares, worries and anxieties that were inseparable from a state of respectability,—so called,—they had never even heard of Mrs. Grundy,—they”—but here my musing was cut short by the arrival of Sinfai with the water.

“Do you know anything about cookin’?” she asked.

“How should I?” said I; “it’s hardly been my line up to the present.”

“Then,” she retorted, “you’d better jolly well begin to learn at once.”

“All right,” said I, laughing. “What’s on the menu?”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about,” was the reply; “but we’ve got to get some poovengroes ready first of all,—here’s a churi for you.”

Taking the proffered knife, I set to work scraping potatoes. Sinfai, overlooking my performance, remarked approvingly—“Ain’t so bad for a start,—we shall make a Romany out o’ you ’fore long.”

While occupied thus as lady’s help I inquired of my instructress, “Where’s your mother today, Sinfai, is she dukkerin?”

“Sh—h!” she replied, “don’t talk so loud, some mush may shoon what you pens. We has to be careful nowadays, the police is down on us,—dukkerin ain’t what it used to be; one time we made a good bit by it—but there! it’s no good worrying about it. I say, Rye, ain’t you never had your fortune told?”

“Yes, Miss—— told it,” I admitted.

“Oh, she ain’t no good at it,” said Sinfai with a sniff; “it allus must be told by a dark person. It’s a gift, you know, and the gorgios as can’t do it of course says it’s dreadful wicked and oughter be put a stop to. Do you believe in it?” she inquired, with a quizzical expression.

“I hardly know,” I replied, somewhat evasively.

“You’ll agree that we knows more about some people than they think, I suppose?” she asked.

“Yes, certainly,” said I.

“Well, then,” rejoined Sinfai in a confidential manner, “dukkerin is only tellin’ ’em what we know. Do you know, the first time I ever saw you and before you’d said half a dozen words, I knew what county you came from,—I’ve travelled that way, you see, and when you came to our camp the first time and sat down, I said to myself, ‘’Taint the first time he’s sat at a Roman camp fire.’ And I was right too, wasn’t I?” I admitted that it was so.

“Well,” she continued, “if I’d told your fortune I should ha’ told you that and of course made you pay for it.”

“Money appears to be quite necessary,” I remarked.

“Well,” said she, “you know we must live somehow,” adding with a merry twinkle, “but I’ll tell yours for nothing if you like.”

“By the way, who did you think could, in a place like this, overhear my question about fortune telling?” I inquired.

“You never know,” she replied, “but I’ve known folks as ought to bin doin’ something better, sneak about and lie hidin’ in the bushes to hear what us Romanies was talking about, but our ears are better than theirs, so we know they’re listenin’, and we talk for their benefit.”

“Why don’t you rokkra Romany so they couldn’t understand?” I queried.

“’Cos we wants the dinneloes to understand,” she answered.

“So that you may play the fool with them,” I added.

“That’s it,” she assented, unblushingly; “if they expects to catch us nappin’ they’re mistaken. So we settles it we’re going to catch shoshoi at a certain place. The man in the bushes hears it and off he goes and lies in wait for us. Where do we go? Why another way, of course, and then we have rabbit—but talkin’s all very well, my Rye, but we haven’t lit the fire yet and the kettle ought to be bilin’; have you got a light?”

She gathered together some pieces of paper and a number of sticks and tried to get a fire going, but it was of no use, the material was damp.

“Bust the thing!” ejaculated my companion; “rum stuff to light a fire with—I got wet through the other day getting some of it too. Didn’t I catch cold? bless you no; shouldn’t know what to do with one if I had it.”

I congratulated her on her immunity.

“Lucky!” she repeated rather ruefully, “am I; look at that fire, fair smokes you out,” then rather insinuatingly added:

“Now you got on all right with the poovengroes, suppose you try your hand at gettin’ her a-goin’,” at the same time nodding towards the fire, which certainly smoked terribly, but appeared very unwilling to burn as desired.

“Well,” said I, perhaps rather ungallantly, “I suppose I may as well do that as sit and look at you.”

“Oh, I don’t mind being looked at,” returned Sinfai, “but you might help with the fire at the same time,—jest see what I do, and if you make some like them, we’ll have her going in no time.”

Hereupon she took a piece of dry deal from an old box and split from it a slip; this she deftly cut from one end almost to the other in a series of leafy shavings around it, and in such a manner that each shaving remained attached to the stick. Together we prepared a number of these and arranged them in a conical pile, each one having the detached end of the chips downward, and a match was applied.

“Got him!” exclaimed Sinfai in her impulsive way as we fed the flames, at first with small twigs, then with larger pieces, and although there was a superabundance of pungent smoke, we had also a cheery, crackling fire.

The kettle was now filled and hung upon the crane, the potatoes were cut into thick slices and set cooking with some meat in the frying-pan. A saucepan was next half-filled with water in readiness for a smoked haddock Vardomescro pÈre was expected to bring.

“Listen!” said Sinfai, “there’s dad coming,” and, although at the moment I could hear nothing to indicate the approach of any living thing, the lapse of a few minutes proved the superior keenness of her hearing, for I began to catch—very indistinctly at first—snatches of the old fellow’s favourite song, “Poor old Joe.”

“Ah! here he comes,” added Sinfai as he approached; “he’s allus ’appy.” In this instance, however, the ’appiness had some connection with refreshment recently imbibed.

Extracting a small parcel from his coat pocket he handed it to her, saying—

“There y’are, nice bit o’ fish that. I couldn’t get no haddicks ’cept fillets, and that little lot cost me fourteen pence with a kipper for meself.”

Turning to me he continued—

“I can’t stand haddick, yer know, but a kipper nicely smoked, with a lot o’ bread and butter, that’s what I like.”

At this juncture the “missis” appeared carrying a large basket which contained,—beside a few oddments of lace and thread, mending wool, shoe laces and reels of cotton,—some loaves of bread and other eatables.

Mention should be made, by the way, of the hawker’s licence, which, carefully stowed away in an envelope, was always left in the basket in case it should be necessary or advisable to demonstrate that her sole means of subsistence was the peddling of lace and other small wares.

There can be no doubt that dukkerin paid best.

The man was about to seat himself preparatory to partaking of the meal, when his wife—noticing the dirty state of his hands—told him in a forcible manner that he should not “sit down to tea with hands like that.”

Looking in my direction, and, assuming a manner evidently intended to appear as an apology for his wife’s outburst, the man observed—

“Ain’t she obsurd now her ole man’s come home.”

I noticed that nevertheless he dutifully washed his hands but made a lame attempt to assert his position as head of the establishment at the expense of the puppy that had just nestled down upon his bed, exclaiming as he turned it out—

“Git hout you, d’ye ’ear, I don’t want no fleas in my bed,—never had a dog in my tent and ain’t agoin’ to; get hout.”

In this camp, however, as in many another, the woman ruled.

Even a short acquaintance with almost any of these wanderers will reveal the fact that they possess quite a fund of humour, and will not infrequently make quaint, trite, or humorous allusions, sometimes even intensely funny remarks, and be, apparently, quite unconscious of doing so, the family with whom I was now fraternizing being no exception.

After the meal, when the younger children had been packed away, the conversation touched upon a number of subjects, varying from theft to aeroplanes, and from personal cleanliness to disasters at sea,—for the gypsy seems to be unable to concentrate his attention for any length of time, but wanders from subject to subject.

In conversing with them one should not be surprised if the conversation takes all sorts of twists and turns. That the gypsy is incapable of viewing matters from a standpoint other than his own, must be considered as the inevitable result of his aloofness.

Some reference having been made to the distinctions of meum and tuum, the mother said—

“Do you know what I’d do if a child o’ mine was to beg, or collar anything? Why I’d prison him for three weeks an’ feed him on bread and water, that’s the truth,—I ain’t a lyin’ woman though I’m sittin’ here,—an’ I can’t abide dirty children,” she continued. “Cleanliness is next to godliness, they say, an’ you gets a big lump o’ soap for a penny nowadays, and I can tell you, Rye, my kiddies ain’t chiklo neither.”

The fact that the tents were in decent condition and the children had appeared fairly well clothed and shod had not escaped my notice, while the meal which had just been partaken of had been on a more lavish scale than I had anticipated and I made some remark to that effect.

“Yes, thank God!” was the unmistakably sincere reply of the man. “I’ve bin in work most o’ the time the last four months, ain’t I, mother?—but we knows what it is to have nothin’ inside, and because we have to get used to the feel of a hungry belly it ain’t to say we likes it. D’you know, Rye, many’s the time I’ve gone to sleep for an hour or two in the daytime when I couldn’t get no work, so I could forget I was hungry.”

At this point the wife addressed me, proffering the advice—

“Don’t you never go near——; she’s a bad lot, you’ll know her anywhere if you meet her ’cos she’s got a mouth like a ’oss collar. She be a lippety tippoty sort, ain’t no good to nobody; besides, she’s got a awful temper on her; as for me, d’ye know, I could keep my temper for seven year; d—n you, you are clumsy,” this being said in the same breath to her child, who had, presumably, got up from bed for a drink of water and had upset the can; she then straightway continued talking as though no interruption had occurred, and chattered on from one subject to another with scarcely a break—

“My husband can read, you know, and he had a paper lent him that had got in it all about a big boat sinking,—nearly everybody was drowned, it said, pani-mushes and all.

“It’s my belief the world’s got too full o’ people and that’s the way the Almighty’s got o’ thinnin’ ’em out. Lord save us all, ain’t it awful to think of ’em all alive same as you and me and then——!

“Yes, my Rye, this country’s good enough for me. Starvation’s ahead next winter for some of us I dare say—but then, folks can starve in Canada too.

“Do you know, as we was sittin’ here last week, one of them aeroplanes come nearly over right up there,—I don’t believe in them things,—if we was meant to fly I’m certain the Almighty would ha’ given us a pair o’ wings apiece.”

In this way her tongue ran on. At length she asked—

“Are you an invalid in your left hand? Why do you hold it like that?”

This curiously expressed inquiry was suggested by the position in which I was holding my hand to relieve pain caused by carrying a heavy camera during several days of wandering.

Heavy clouds had been gathering for some little time and rain had seemed imminent, now it pattered down in a fashion that promised a downpour.

“Come into the tent,” said my hostess, “there ain’t no creepers,—tramps gets ’em, we don’t.”

She had scarcely finished speaking when she scratched her head vigorously.

“Yus!” she ejaculated as she noticed my attempt to suppress a smile.

“Them’s gnats!”

“Dordi!” she exclaimed as we got under cover. “Did you hear that? It sounded like thunder; hope we ain’t goin’ to get any, it foretells a death, you know; we had a dreadful storm the night before Mrs. Beshaley’s little ’un died.”

Hearing a footfall, Mrs. Vardomescro applied one eye to a small hole in the tent blanket, then said—

“Make room there, Bill, she’s coming here.”

By shifting around a little we made room for one more and I must confess I was very glad to make the acquaintance of Mrs. Beshaley, for she was one of the nicest, in addition to being one of the most beautiful of Romany women I had met. She appeared to be between twenty-five and thirty years of age; she wore no hat but had her hair—which was intensely black—plaited somewhat elaborately, the plaits hanging over her ears passed around the back of her head in a style facetiously termed “the door-knocker pattern.” Nevertheless, it suited her. In her ears were gold ear-rings of a curious crescentic design, and around the neck she had four rows of large red beads. She was dressed in black, being in mourning for her little boy.

After I had been introduced to her by Mrs. Vardomescro as “a friend who jinned what was pen’d in Romany,” all took part in the conversation. Most of what passed would have little general interest, but there is pathos in the following reference made by the new-comer to her recent loss which must not be passed by, and which is an unconscious, albeit welcome, refutation of charges of impassiveness, and the indifference of gypsies to the welfare of their children. An illuminating glimpse may also be obtained of an aspect of Romany life that is rarely, if ever, paraded—before the gorgio.

“My little boy who died,” said Mrs. Beshaley, “was a stiff little chap, he’d talk like a man and would stop older children teasing birds or any animals, saying, ‘mustn’t do it, mustn’t do it.’ Dear little fellow, he was too good, so—he had to leave us.”

Silently, our sympathies went out to the bereaved mother, who, as though oblivious of our presence, continued—soliloquizing—

One could see that this trouble still lay heavily upon her, and that she derived a melancholy satisfaction from speaking of the little one who had been so much to her.

“Do you know,” said she, awaking from her temporary stupor, “I felt that I couldn’t stay alone in my van while the storm was going over, but I think I must be getting back now.”

Bidding me good night she held out her hand, saying—

“My husband will be at home to-morrow, he would like to have a talk with you; will you come and have tea with us? it isn’t much we’ve got to offer, but to what there is you’re quite welcome. Good night to you all.”

When the retreating footsteps could no longer be heard, Mrs. Vardomescro remarked—

“There’s still a few good folk left in the world and she’s one of ’em, and yet this has come to her. But the Almighty knows best.”

The storm being practically over, I stepped from the tent into the open, finding the air deliciously cool and refreshing, and as it was getting late I bade adieu to my friends—“and so home,” as the old diarist so quaintly expresses it.

Next evening I sought out the van occupied by Mr. and Mrs. Beshaley from among several drawn up in the same field. They had one of the most comfortable—not to say luxurious—vans I had ever entered; however, as the weather was gloriously fine, tea was, as usual, partaken of outside.

The man’s conversation interested me greatly, and although at times he expressed himself somewhat curiously, he was by no means an ignoramus.

“Look here,” said he, “some folks don’t like us gypsies, in fact many people are afraid of us, and perhaps it’s all the better for us and for them as well that it is so. I reckon the gorgios are conceited, they’ll tell you their way of living in houses is the best, but we know very well our way is the best, and to prove it let me ask you why do the doctors send people for what they call the open-air treatment? Why do they send hundreds and thousands o’ kiddies into the country every year from London? Bless me! you can very nearly see ’em grow and go brown. Why do they do this if their way is the best?

“And just think too what lots of the well-to-do people have got vans lately and fitted ’em out like hotels so they can play at bein’ gypsies. I’ll bet you yeck posh korauna to your shohaury that they don’t know how to chin a ran nor how to scrape a poovengro, and then they go home to their friends and say, ‘We’ve been gypsying, and it’s delightful.’ Oh, yes, Rye, I know how they talk,—and they say, ‘Really it’s quite inexpensive, you can hire a wagon for five or six pounds a week and if you economize it works out at next to nothing.’ A man cook sees to all the food for ’em, then they have a groom to ’tend to the horse, another man to open the newspaper and so on. Some of ’em pay for it of course, but I dare say some don’t, like the old song says—

Being most anxious to secure a portrait of Mrs. Beshaley I asked her husband if he would object to my photographing her.

“Not at all,” was his hearty reply. “I should like one of her myself, but I’m afraid you won’t get her to agree to it.”

Therefore, when she next appeared I proffered my request.

“No!” she replied, politely but very firmly. “I wouldn’t have my photograph taken for any money,—my brother once wanted me to have it done, but I wouldn’t, and then he offered me a golden sovereign if I would have it taken, but I didn’t, and I never will. Can’t you draw?” she inquired, and upon receiving my reply in the affirmative, added—

“You are welcome to draw my portrait at any time, but I won’t be photographed if I know it.”

Considering this a great concession, and fearful lest the permission should be withdrawn, I made my working sketch on the spot.

I could not then, and I cannot now, understand the difference in effect on the sitter between having a portrait photographed or drawn. That there was to her some subtle distinction which she probably could not, and most certainly would not, explain there can be no manner of doubt, and I can only suggest that photo-chemical action was a mystery to her, and that, in a subconscious or indefinable way, it was regarded as likely to rob her of some part of her psychic entity.

The ordeal over, Mr. Beshaley picked up the thread of our earlier conversation and continued—

“Well, there’s good and bad folk among us the same as other people, but gypsies have always had a bad name among the gorgios,—you might almost think gypsies were all bad, and all the gorgios good,” he added, laughing. “I know one gorgio,” he went on, “who said, ‘Drive all the gypsies away somewhere, I don’t care where they go, so long as they don’t come near me,’ yet mind you this very man reads the lessons in church.

“Such as him would be the first to grumble if strawberries went up a few pence the basket.

“What would the fruit-growers, the hop-growers and goodness knows who else, do without us?

“Can a farmer keep on all the year the hands who help at the busy season? No! you know as well as I do it wouldn’t pay him.

“We have what we call our ‘runs,’ you know,—at one time we do a bit of potato planting and cleaning, afterwards we travel to the strawberry country, then we go on haymaking and field pea-picking.

“I’ve told you what we do for a living,” he continued; “might I ask you what you do?”

“Well,” I answered, “I am what your folk call a por-engro, and I suppose that is correct.”

“And you are writing a lil about us?” he queried.

“Yes,” said I; “at least I hope to do so.”

“And they tell me you go about alone among us; why, some wouldn’t feel safe.”

“It really seems as if I ought to think you are a bad lot,” I observed, laughing.

“And so we are, at least that’s what folks who jaw to us for our good tell us,” he replied, at the same time giving a knowing wink.

“Do you make much sugar at your game?” he inquired with apparent interest.

“Not nearly so much,” I replied, “as I think I should at strawberry-picking.”

To this he made no rejoinder but shook his head deprecatingly, seeing that I was quizzing him.

“Well,” said he, resuming, “you know that gorgios say the gypsy is a lazy, good-for-nothing fellow, and if he works at all it’s only a kind of accident, but you’ve been among us and know different, how in the season we start sometimes at four o’clock in the morning and work all day till seven or eight at night. Some folks think strawberry-picking is a easy job, but let them as thinks so try it; let ’em work in the glare of the sun day after day till their eyes smart as ours often do. I’ve known many a man who’s had to knock off ’cause his eyes was so bad,—and they’d find too there can’t be a more back-aching job than pickin’ strawberries hour after hour.

“You might put that in your lil, and perhaps some of the folks as reads it’ll think all the better of us.

“Of course some seasons are better than others,” he resumed; “this year some of our folk will come off badly, the frost ‘played up’ the bloom anyhow. A while back the flowers looked fine, but a frost come one night and afterwards a lot of ’em had black eyes”—here he took a contemplative pull at his pipe and added, “Strawberries don’t like ’em any more than we do. Many of the fields were scarcely touched by the frost, but I know of one family who have come a good many miles and spent nearly all they had to get here, and up to now they’ve scarcely done three days’ work, but we in our field have been at work for a fortnight. I reckon they’ll have a rough time next winter unless they do well at the hop country, which ain’t very likely, for hop-pickin’, as you know, ain’t so good pay as fruitin’.

“Shall we see you up there?” he asked, referring to the hop district.

“I hope to get there,” I replied.

“There’s a lot o’ things we ain’t talked over yet,” he rejoined, “and as my old mother used to say, when folks start talkin’ over the affairs of Egypt or about Romany jib they should start early in the morning.

“Well, a pleasant journey to you and the best o’ luck,—hope you’ll get home safe,” was Mr. Beshaley’s parting salutation, accompanied by a reminder about the second Sunday in September for the hops, “for we don’t reckon you a mumply gorgio, you ought by rights to ha’ been a traveller.”

To the echo of this compliment—one of the highest that can be paid to a gorgio in a Romany camp—I set out on my return home and at no great distance ran against the Vardomescroes on the way to their tent.

Again was I enjoined by the man to “let us see you again up in the hop country,” while the old woman chimed in with—

“You will enjoy yourself, I’m sure; just walk about and take photos; lor’, it’s an easy job if ever there was one, but there, I suppose I couldn’t do your work and you couldn’t do mine. Some gets bread one way and some gets it another, don’t ’um? When you come would you mind bringing another photo of Vena; the other day the rain come down so hard that the water run in one end of the tent and out o’ the other and I’m sorry to say it quite spoiled the one you gave us.”

“I shall be glad to let you have another,” I replied, “and will certainly bring it with me.”

After profusely thanking me the old man added, “And I’ll give you some mushrooms, you knows well I ain’t one o’ the ungrateful sort, and if the folks as say we are, had nobody to stand at back of ’em and say a good word, why they might be different from what they are.

“To say the good word for us sometimes would be little enough to do, the Almighty knows, but no, they side with money always, it don’t matter what a man does if he’s got money, he’ll always get helped. But Rye, look here, do you think such folks can be real happy with all their money? I don’t. I’ve just read about a man who shot his wife because she wasn’t true to him, and they had lots o’ money it said, but to my way o’ thinking, if two folks really love one another, nothing else matters; you can buy a house, you can buy land, but love ain’t bought with money. A man may not have a shirt to his back, but when love ‘brews’ inside him, he’s bound to be happy. My missis and me have been married now over forty years, and the older we gets the more we loves one another; God’s in heaven and He knows that’s how it should be, and my missis has always been true to me; if she hadn’t been, I love her so as I could kill her,—yes, I could, and then die like a man and meet her t’other side.

“My daughter Videy, you know, is engaged to——, and he says he loves the very shoes she wears. More than once he’s had to fight for her, and he hasn’t allus come off best, still I admires him for it, for he can’t abear for anybody to say anything agin her.

“She teases him anyhow, and she’s silly to do so,—I tell her she’ll get a tatto yeck one o’ these days, but she only laughs and says, ‘O lumme, there’s plenty o’ young chaps about yet.’ But you can’t put old heads on young shoulders, can you?”

Awaking, apparently, to the fact that his tongue had been running away with him, the old fellow added apologetically—

“I’m afraid we’ve kept you a bit, but once we get fairly started there’s no telling when we are going to stop.

“Good night. Don’t forget the ‘oppin’.”