"Have you seen Jasper Petulengro lately?" said I.
"Yes, I have seen him, but it was at a very considerable distance.
Jasper Petulengro doesn't come near the likes of we now. Lord! you
can't think what grand folks he and his wife have become of late
years, and all along of a trumpery lil which somebody has written
about them. Why, they are hand and glove with the Queen and
Prince, and folks say that his wife is going to be made dame of
honour, and Jasper Justice of the Peace and Deputy Ranger of
Windsor Park."
"Only think," said I. "And now tell me, what brought you into
Wales?"
"What brought me into Wales? I'll tell you; my own fool's head. I
was doing nicely in the Kaulo Gav and the neighbourhood, when I
must needs pack up and come into these parts with bag and baggage,
wife and childer. I thought that Wales was what it was some thirty
years agone when our foky used to say - for I was never here before
- that there was something to be done in it; but I was never more
mistaken in my life. The country is overrun with Hindity mescrey,
woild Irish, with whom the Romany foky stand no chance. The
fellows underwork me at tinkering, and the women outscream my wife
at telling fortunes - moreover, they say the country is theirs and
not intended for niggers like we, and as they are generally in vast
numbers what can a poor little Roman family do but flee away before
them? A pretty journey I have made into Wales. Had I not
contrived to pass off a poggado bav engro - a broken-winded horse -
at a fair, I at this moment should be without a tringoruschee piece
in my pocket. I am now making the best of my way back to
Brummagem, and if ever I come again to this Hindity country may
Calcraft nash me."
"I wonder you didn't try to serve some of the Irish out," said I.
"I served one out, brother; and my wife and childer helped to wipe
off a little of the score. We had stopped on a nice green, near a
village over the hills in Glamorganshire, when up comes a Hindity
family, and bids us take ourselves off. Now it so happened that
there was but one man and a woman and some childer, so I laughed,
and told them to drive us off. Well, brother, without many words,
there was a regular scrimmage. The Hindity mush came at me, the
Hindity mushi at y my juwa, and the Hindity chaves at my chai. It
didn't last long, brother. In less than three minutes I had hit
the Hindity mush, who was a plaguey big fellow, but couldn't fight,
just under the point of the chin, and sent him to the ground with
all his senses gone.
