Of the half-breeds, and especially of those who have only a very slight trace of the dark blood or _kalo ratt_, there are in Great Britain many thousands.

Of the true stock there are now only a few hundreds.

But all are "Rommany," and all have among themselves an "understanding" which separates them from the "Gorgios." It is difficult to define what this understanding is--suffice it to say, that it keeps them all in many respects "peculiar," and gives them a feeling of free-masonry, and of guarding a social secret, long after they leave the roads and become highly reputable members of society.

But they have a secret, and no one can know them who has not penetrated it.
* * * * * One day I mentioned to my old Rommany, what Mr Borrow has said, that no English Gipsy knows the word for a leaf, or _patrin_.

He admitted that it was true; but after considering the subject deeply, and dividing the deliberations between his pipe and a little wooden bear on the table--his regular oracle and friend--he suddenly burst forth in the following beautiful illustration of philology by theology:-- "Rya, I pens you the purodirus lav for a leaf--an' that's a _holluf_.
(Don't you jin that the holluf was the firstus leaf?
so holluf must be the Rommany lav, sense Rommanis is the purodirest jib o' saw.) For when the first mush was kaired an' created in the tem adree--and that was the boro Duvel himself, I expect--an' annered the tem apre, he was in the bero, an' didn't jin if there was any puvius about, so he bitchered the chillico avree.