It is at any time interesting to meet in _propriâ personâ_ either the original, or an exact counterpart of a character with whom one has hitherto been acquainted only through the observations of a third person, and it has been my good fortune to meet one such in a certain Mr. Petulengro, a name, by the way, that is pretty well known as the Romany equivalent of the surname Smith. Almost every one who mixes at all with gypsies will come across a number of Smiths, especially in the southern and eastern counties, but he whom I have in mind is one of the old school, and, so far as identity alone is concerned, might have stepped out of the pages of a writer upon gypsy life of the last century. He is a man of medium height, with typical Romany features, and may often be seen wearing a black great-coat having two silver buttons—each about one and a half inches in diameter—near the top. He is comparatively well-to-do, and is in possession of a caravan which cost something well over a hundred pounds to build. Until recently, he and I had somehow always managed to keep beyond hand-shaking distance, although we were known to each other through mutual friends. When at last I met him, he said as we shook hands— “Pal from Nevi Wesh, I knew it as soon as I saw you.” Thereupon he introduced me to his relatives, including, apparently, almost every one in that camp. After these preliminaries he spread a sack for me at his fireside and we had a long talk together. He spoke “deep” Romany and acquainted me with a number of words which I believe had not been printed, and informed me that not long previously he had talked with a gentleman speaking an Indian language who understood most of what he said in Romany, while he was able to get at the meaning of a lot of the words the gentleman used, adding that he counted up to six almost the same as in Romany, but for seven, eight and nine he said—as nearly as I can remember—“sart, arth, now.” “Doesn’t that,” said my friend, “seem to prove that the Romanies came from India at one time, else where did we get the language? Some of our folks say, ‘No, we are all English only we don’t speak the same tongue,’ but don’t you believe it, Rye. Did you ever see a real thoroughbred Englishman or woman as dark as my folks, or with hands and feet as well made and as small as ours? No, my pal! hoquepens like that won’t do. Besides, you can always tell a true gypsy by his eye, it’s different somehow from the gorgios. I’m not ‘overstruck’ by the way the gorgios speak to each other either,—they say—hello, Smith! hello, Jones! and so on in the rudest way. Did you ever hear anything better than the gypsy way of calling one another pal for brother and pen for sister? After all we are really brothers and sisters.” “And would you,” I asked, “call a gorgio a pal?” “No!” he replied, “and you know it. A gorgio’s a gorgio, and a chal’s a chal, and always will be.”