“And this is your action at law, Ursula?”
“Yes, brother, this is my action at club-law.”
“And would your breaking the fellow’s head quite clear you of all suspicion in the eyes of your batus, cokos, and what not?”
“They would never suspect me at all, brother, because they would know that I would never condescend to be over-intimate with a gorgio; the breaking the head would be merely intended to justify Ursula in the eyes of the gorgios.”
“Would it not, brother? When they saw the blood running down from the fellow’s cracked poll on his greens and Lincolns, they would be quite satisfied; why, the fellow would not be able to show his face at fair or merry-making for a year and three-quarters.”
“Can’t say I ever did, brother, but it would do.”
“And how did you ever learn such a method of proceeding?”
“Why, ’t is advised by gypsy liri, brother. It’s part of our way of settling difficulties amongst ourselves; for example, if a young Roman were to say the thing which is not respecting Ursula and himself, Ursula would call a great meeting of the people, who would all sit down in a ring, the young fellow amongst them; a coko would then put a stick in Ursula’s hand, who would then get up and go to the young fellow, and say, ‘Did I play the — with you?’ and were he to say ‘Yes,’ she would crack his head before the eyes of all.”
“Well,” said I, “Ursula, I was bred an apprentice to gorgio law, and of course ought to stand up for it, whenever I conscientiously can, but I must say the gypsy manner of bringing an action for defamation is much less tedious, and far more satisfactory, than the gorgiko one. I wish you now to clear up a certain point which is rather mysterious to me. You say that for a Romany chi to do what is unseemly with a gorgio is quite out of the question, yet only the other day I heard you singing a song in which a Romany chi confesses herself to be cambri by a grand gorgious gentleman.”
“Well,” said I, “sad or not, there’s the song that speaks of the thing, which you give me to understand is not.”
“Well, if the thing ever was,” said Ursula, “it was a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, not true.”
“I’ll tell you, brother, we sings the song now and then to be a warning to ourselves to have as little to do as possible in the way of acquaintance with the gorgios; and a warning it is; you see how the young woman in the song was driven out of her tent by her mother, with all kind of disgrace and bad language; but you don’t know that she was afterwards buried alive by her cokos and pals in an uninhabited place; the song doesn’t say it, but the story says it, for there is a story about it, though, as I said before, it was a long time ago, and perhaps, after all, wasn’t true.”