You can imagine what eight hundred Munsters shouting “No” sounds like.
They were all attention instantly. I wonder what would happen if the Vicar
went into church next Sunday morning and asked the question, “Are we
down-hearted?” I knew it would cause a sensation, but I’d rather have a
sensation than a stagnation.

Those boys sat up. I said, “We are going to talk about gipsy life.” I
talked to them about the origin of my people. There’s not a man living in
the world who knows the origin of my people. I can trace my people back to
India, but they didn’t come from India. We are one of the oldest races in
the world, so old that nobody knows how old. I talked to them about the
origin of the gipsies, and I don’t know it, but I knew more about it than
they did. I talked to them about our language, and I gave them specimens
of it, and there I was on sure ground. It is a beautiful language, full of
poetry and music. Then I talked about the way the gipsies get their
living—and other people’s; and for thirty minutes those Munsters hardly
knew if they were on the chairs or on the floor—and I purposely made them
laugh. They had just come out of the hell of the trenches. They had that
haunted, weary, hungry look, and if only I could make them laugh and
forget the hell out of which they had just climbed it was religion, and I
wasn’t wasting time.

When I had been talking for thirty minutes, I stopped, and said, “Boys,
there’s a lot more to this story. Would you like some more?”

“Yes,” they shouted.

“Come back to-morrow,” I said.

I was fishing in unlikely waters, and if you leave off when fish are