great interest in it."

"Yes, sir."

"I can tell you all the names of your tools in French. You'd like to
hear them, wouldn't you?"

"Wery much indeed, sir."

So I took up the chisel. "This," I said, "is a _churi_, sometimes called
a _chinomescro_."

"That's the French for it, is it, sir?" replied the tinker, gravely. Not
a muscle of his face moved.

"The _coals_," I added, "are _hangars_ or _wongurs_, sometimes called
_kaulos_."

"Never heerd the words before in my life," quoth the sedate tinker.

"The bellows is a _pudemengro_. Some call it a _pishota_."

"Wery fine language, sir, is French," rejoined the tinker. In every
instance he repeated the words after me, and pronounced them correctly,
which I had not invariably done. "Wery fine language. But it's quite
new to me."

"You wouldn't think now," I said, affably, "that _I_ had ever been on the
roads!"