Pleased with the brevity of my peroration, I took my cigarette-case from my pocket, and, having selected a cigarette, carefully proceeded to light it with the utmost deliberation. I had taken my eyes off him for the moment, partly in order to ascertain if the cigarette were properly alight, partly to perfect the illusion of _sang froid_; and dearly I paid for my rashness, for with a bound he was upon me. I ducked; but it was too late, and over I went backward, my enemy a-top of me, crash through the arbour on to the stone flagging within. I was stunned, I suppose, for a minute or so, for I lay there wondering what had happened, and annoyed that a wasp, as I thought, should have stung me in the neck. In another moment I had discovered that the smart was due to a bit of live cigarette-ash that had chanced to drop inside my collar in my fall, and I tried to put up a hand to remove it. To my disgust, I found my hands were knotted tightly together; my legs, too, were bound, and, as I turned my head, my eyes met those of my enemy, sitting beside me on a low stool. 'The gadgi' (viz., 'gorgio,' or man of non-gipsy race) 'is but a fool in his pride and self-conceit,' said he; 'he is but a tortoise, for all his pushkin's (hare) gallop at the start.' This was what I heard him saying as I recovered consciousness, and as I knew that gipsies always hide their origin, and refrain from their language in the presence of the 'gorgios,' I felt certain he must be labouring under great excitement, and momentarily expected to see him out with his knife and finish me there and then. Here he stooped, and I thought my hour had come, but apparently it was only to pick up my fallen cigarette. Pinching off the blackened end, he put it between his lips, and, lighting it at the other end, drew in deep breaths of tobacco-smoke. 'I don't wonder you enjoy it,' said I, as I watched his proceedings with an intense annoyance; 'successful theft is pleasant to a tchor (thief), I presume?' 'And who's the tchor in the end,' retorted he--'you or me? Speak, little gutterwhelp from the toon, that art paid to lie at so many bars (sovereigns) the lie. Your kind take a man's money, plead so ill that at the finish the "stande" (gaol) has him, while the big thief's left behind in court wi' a white wig on, an' a smile on his ugly moi (mouth). Who's the tchor, then?' he repeated with a leer, as he blew a cloud of smoke in the air. 'I 'low ye got me nabbed at York 'Sizes, but it wesn't yor doin', 'twas that dirty Jack Spraggon, who turned informer an' legged me that time. Why, ye pink-eyed toon's-spawn, if I'd my rights, an' things were as they aince was, I'd hang ye tae the nearest tree. Look there,' he cried, as, stirring me with his foot, he drew up his coat-sleeve and thrust a tattoed wrist over my eyes--'look there, d'ye ken what that is?' I gazed with interest, for it was evidently an heraldic coat, excellently well punctured in his flesh.