"What did he blow on a pipe for?"

"Just for _hokkerben_, to humbug them. I suppose he had oils rubbed on
his heels. But when he had drawn the rats away and asked for his money,
they would not give it to him. So then, what do you think he did?"

"I suppose--ah, I see," said the Gipsy, with a shrewd look. "He went and
drew 'em all back again."

"No; he went, and this time piped all the children away. They all went
after him--all except one little lame boy--and that was the last of it."

The Gipsy looked earnestly at me, and then, as if I puzzled, but with an
expression of perfect faith, he asked--

"And is that all _tacho_--all a fact--or is it made up, you know?"

"Well, I think it is partly one and partly the other. You see, that in
those days Gipsies were very scarce, and people were very much astonished
at rat-drawing, and so they made a queer story of it."

"But how about the children?"

"Well," I answered; "I suppose you have heard occasionally that Gipsies
used to chore Gorgios' chavis--steal people's children?"

Very grave indeed was the assent yielded to this explanation. He _had_
heard it among other things.

My dear Mr Robert Browning, I little thought, when I suggested to the