But Hewitt went on, talking and joking furiously. The men who were not speaking mostly smoked gloomily, but whenever one spoke, he became animated and lively. I had attempted once or twice to join in, though my efforts were not particularly successful, except in inducing one man to offer me tobacco from his box--tobacco that almost made me giddy in the smell. He tried some of mine in exchange, and though he praised it with native politeness, and smoked the pipe through, I could see that my Hignett mixture was poor stuff in his estimation, compared with the awful tobacco in his own box. Presently the man with the broken shoe got up, slouched over to his tent, and disappeared. Then said Hewitt (I translate): "You're not all Lees here, I see?" "Yes, _pal_, all Lees." "But _he's_ not a Lee?" and Hewitt jerked his head towards the tent. "Why not a Lee, _pal_? We be Lees, and he is with us. Thus he is a Lee." "Oh yes, of course. But I know he is from over the _pawny_. Come, I'll guess the _tem_[4] he comes from--it's from Roumania, eh? Perhaps the Wallachian part?" [4] Country. The men looked at one another, and then the old Lee said: "You're right, pal. You're cleverer than we took you for. That is what they calls his _tem_. He is a petulengro,[5]and he comes with us to shoe the _gries_[6] and mend the _vardoes_.[7] But he is with us, and so he is a Lee." [5] Smith. [6] Horses. [7] Vans. The talk and the smoke went on, and presently the man with the broken shoe returned, and lay down again. Then, when the whisky had all gone, and Hewitt, with some excuse that I did not understand, had begged a piece of cord from one of the men, we left in a chorus of _kooshto rardies_.[8] [8] Good-night. By this time it was nearly ten o'clock. We walked briskly till we came back again to the inn where we had bought the whisky. Here Hewitt, after some little trouble, succeeded in hiring a village cart, and while the driver was harnessing the horse, cut a couple of short sticks from the hedge. These, being each divided into two, made four short, stout pieces of something less than six inches long apiece. Then Hewitt joined them together in pairs, each pair being connected from centre to centre by about nine or ten inches of the cord he had brought from the gipsies' camp. These done, he handed one pair to me. "Handcuffs," he explained, "and no bad ones either. See--you use them so." And he passed the cord round my wrist, gripping the two handles, and giving them a slight twist that sufficiently convinced me of the excruciating pain that might be inflicted by a vigorous turn, and the utter helplessness of a prisoner thus secured in the hands of captors prepared to use their instruments. "Whom are these for?" I asked. "The man with the broken shoe?" Hewitt nodded. "Yes," he said. "I expect we shall find him out alone about midnight. You know how to use these now."