CONVERSATION was difficult, not because there was nothing to talk about, but because Lotka, Fardi’s comely wife, returned at every opportunity to the subject of my study carpet. I had invited them to afternoon tea and they were taking it in my room, behaving with the perfect propriety Gypsies always observe under circumstances in which the manners and self-possession of a British workman would fail. But my carpet was thick and soft, catholic in its colour-taste though red in the main, and decorated with a large angular sprawling Indian pattern—and Lotka had fallen in love with it. She had proposed to take it up at once and transfer it to her tent at Tranmere, waiving aside my objected fear of cold feet with the reply that I could go to bed then and buy a new one in the morning. All will sympathize with my eagerness to change the subject who know what serious Gypsy begging means: it is dangerous as oratory, convincing a man against his reason, and leading to bitterly repented sacrifices. But those who have experienced it will know also the impossibility of escape. Like a skiff in a whirlpool our talk might seem to be sailing pleasantly North, South, East or West, and yet be tending inevitably towards the central peril. No matter what conversational subject was started it led relentlessly back to the carpet. Amongst other fruitless devices for escape which ingenuity, quickened by despair, suggested, was the production of albums of Gypsy pictures, the leaves of which my guests turned indifferently, punctuating their talk with contemptuous exclamations of “_Sinte_”—but the talk was still of carpets. There were photographs of real Gypsies from everywhere on earth, engravings of artists’ Gypsies such as have never been seen anywhere in the world, highly coloured illustrations of camps, and ancient woodcuts of the costume Gypsies wore of old; but none represented “Our _Roma_” and for Fardi and his spouse all were devoid of any kind of interest. In the middle of a page, however, was a somewhat mean picture-postcard which had reached me through several hands, but came originally from Lemberg in Galitsia. It represented a troop of elaborately costumed performers, whom I had always taken for “counterfeit Egyptians,” dancing and playing huge accordions on an artistically decorated stage, and the subscription was “Gypsies from the Caucasus.” Fardi never allowed his emotions to appear conspicuously, but it was evident from the close scrutiny he and Lotka made of the postcard that they were genuinely interested: “Our _Roma_,” they said, approvingly, but without surprise. Then they gave me the names of some of the party, and apropos of the stage-drapery, reverted to the subject of carpets. [Picture: Tinka: Photo. by Central News]