The tinker looked at me from my hat to my boots, and solemnly replied--

"I should say it was wery likely. From your language, sir, wery likely
indeed."

I gazed as gravely back as if I had not been at that instant the worst
sold man in London, and asked--

"Can you _rakher Rommanis_?" (_i.e_., speak Gipsy.)

And _he_ said he _could_.

Then we conversed. He spoke English intermingled with Gipsy, stopping
from time to time to explain to his assistant, or to teach him a word.
This portly person appeared to be about as well up in the English Gipsy
as myself--that is, he knew it quite as imperfectly. I learned that the
master had been in America, and made New York and Brooklyn glad by his
presence, while Philadelphia, my native city had been benefited as to its
scissors and morals by him.

"And as I suppose you made money there, why didn't you remain?" I
inquired.

The Gipsy--for he was really a Gipsy, and not a half-scrag--looked at me
wistfully, and apparently a little surprised that I should ask him such a
question.

"Why, sir, _you_ know that _we_ can't keep still. Somethin' kept telling
me to move on, and keep a movin'. Some day I'll go back again."