Kola’s policy is successful; it has made him rich. Other Gypsies have attached themselves to his family, married his relations, and placed him at the head of an important tribe, whose activities he regulates, whose well-being he cares for, whose movements he directs, which he governs as “king.” When dissatisfaction arises the malcontents are free to migrate to another monarchy; but so long as Kola is successful and so long as his subjects share his success, thus long will his kingdom endure. Kola’s kingdom should be impossible. It is contrary to reason, contrary at all events to what we call reason, that a community should prefer the primitive ways of the Middle Ages to the latest improvements of modern civilization. His bellows were old-fashioned even in the fifteenth century and survive now only among savages; yet in his eyes they are still the best bellows, and if out of curiosity he were to purchase a mechanical blower he would probably hand it over to his grandchildren for a toy. With pockets well lined with money he neglects to buy table cutlery, tears his portion of bread from the loaf and scrapes it clumsily in the butter-dish. The luxurious chairs and sofas with which he furnishes his royal tent are vain ostentation; guests may use them, but Kola himself prefers to sit, as his ancestors have sat for countless centuries, cross-legged on the ground. Us and all that we value, with the single exception of money, he despises even more cordially than we despise him. Like a drop of oil in a glass of water he and his tribe live in our midst untouched, strangely aloof and alien, a wonderful spectacle of an _Imperium in Imperio_. 3. GYPSY BAGMEN. {13} THE commercial traveller is more truly born to his profession than the poet, unless an unreasonably exacting definition of poet be accepted; and to those who are not thus born, it seems inexplicable that any sane person should willingly adopt so toilsome and disagreeable, yet thankless and inglorious, an occupation, and even learn to like it. Paradoxically the Gypsy coppersmiths, in travelling, combined the methods of a raw apprentice, foredoomed to failure, with diligence, enthusiasm—and success—which proved them born bagmen. They evidently enjoyed being “on the road” in this very un-Gypsylike sense; yet, Gypsylike, retained their independence, differing from the common “drummer” in that they represented, not an exacting master, but their own still more exacting selves. The fact that they travelled was not remarkable—travelling was the necessary prelude to their industry. What was astonishing was the versatility which enabled them both to beat our native coppersmiths in smithcraft and to rival British agents in the energy with which they canvassed for the orders they were themselves to execute.