With patience anybody can become a fairly good commercial traveller who has a respectable appearance and good address, carries a useful article, and asks a reasonable price. The Gypsies certainly carried a useful article, inasmuch as their repairs were skilful and thorough, but all the other circumstances were against them. Their extravagant costume reminded those on whom they called of brigands rather than of sober business-men, and brigands are not welcome in offices or factories. In combination with their black hair and glittering eyes it was apt to betray their nationality. If it did, so much the worse, for a commercial transaction with a Gypsy is several degrees more unpopular than a commercial transaction with a Jew. As for address, it mattered not at first whether they possessed it or not, for they spoke no English. They soon discovered and engaged threadbare ungrammatical aliens to talk for them, but until they obtained such assistance they were content to carry tattered scraps of soiled paper on which their qualifications were set forth in a handwriting and dialect which were very far from commanding the respect of possible customers. Here again they reared an unnecessary obstacle against their own success, for it is an axiom that the worse the business, the better must be the quality of the stationery. Even when they had learned a little English—and, belying Gypsy reputation, they learnt it very slowly—they scorned to use ingratiating behaviour, delicate compliment, or even funny stories; their whole persuasive stock-in-trade was a whine, a dogged and irritating perseverance, inability to recognize the moment when it is more profitable to go than to stay, and stone-deafness to the most emphatic “no.” In short, their method was simply the endless importunity which their wives and children devoted to shameless and successful begging.