it cries out and squeaks just like a little child. Stargoli means 'four
cries.'"

I had my doubts as to the accuracy of this startling derivation, but said
nothing. The same Gipsy on a subsequent occasion, being asked what he
would call a _roan_ horse in Rommany, replied promptly--

"A matchno grai"--a fish-horse.

"Why a matchno grai?"

"Because a fish has a roan (_i.e_., roe), hasn't it? Leastways I can't
come no nearer to it, if it ain't that."

But he did better when I was puzzling my brain, as the learned Pott and
Zippel had done before me, over the possible origin of churro or tchurro,
"a ball, or anything round," when he suggested--

"Rya--I should say that as a _churro_ is round, and a _curro_ or cup is
round, and they both sound alike and look alike, it must be all werry
much the same thing." {33}

"Can you tell me anything more about snails?" I asked, reverting to a
topic which, by the way, I have observed is like that of the hedgehog, a
favourite one with Gipsies.

"Yes; you can cure warts with the big black kind that have no shells."

"You mean slugs. I never knew they were fit to cure anything."