‘You have mastered your dukkeripen, Sinfi?’ ’Yes, I’ve mastered mine,’ she said, with the same look of triumph on her face—­’I swore I’d master my dukkeripen, brother, an’ I done it.  I said to myself the dukkeripen is strong, but a Romany chi may be stronger still if she keeps a-sayin’ to herself “I WILL master it; I WILL, I WILL."’

’Then that explains something I have often noticed, Sinfi.  I have often seen your lips move and nothing has come from them but a whisper, “I will, I will, I will."’

’Ah, you’ve noticed that, have you?  Well then, now you know what it meant.’

’But, Sinfi, you have not told me what your dukkeripen is.  You have often alluded to it, but you have never allowed me even to guess what it is.’

Sinfi’s face beamed with pride of triumph.

‘You never guessed it?  No, you never could guess it.  An’ months an’ months have we lived together an’ you heard me whisper “I will, I will,” an’ you never guessed what them words meant.  Lucky for you, my fine Gorgio, that you didn’t guess it,’ she said, in an altered tone.

‘Why?’

‘’Cos if you had a-guessed it you’d ha’ cotch’d a left-hand body-blow that ‘ud most like ha’ killed you.  That’s what you’d ha’ cotch’d.  But now as we’re a-goin’ to part for ever I’ll tell you.’

‘Part for ever, Sinfi?’

‘Yis, an’ that’s why I’m goin’ to tell you what my dukkeripen wur.  Many’s the time as you’ve asked me how it was that, for all that you and I was pals, I hate the Gorgios in a general way as much as Rhona Boswell likes ’em.  I used to like the Gorgios wonst as well as ever Rhona did—­else how should I ever ha’ been so fond o’ Winnie Wynne?  Tell me that,’ she said, in an argumentative way as though I had challenged her speech.  ‘If I hadn’t ha’ liked the Gorgios wonst, how should I ha’ been so fond o’ Winnie Wynne?  An’ why don’t I like Gorgios now?  Many’s the time you’ve ax’d me that question, an’ now’s the time for me to tell you.  I know’d the time ‘ud come, an’ this is the time to tell you, when you and me and Winnie are a-goin’ to part for ever at the top o’ the biggest mountain in the world, this ’ere blessed Snowdon, as allus did seem somehow to belong to her an’ me.  When I wur fond o’ the Gorgios,—­fonder nor ever Rhona Boswell wur at that time (’cos she hadn’t never met then with the Gorgio she’s a-goin’ to die for),—­it wur when I war a little chavi, an’ didn’t know nothink about dukkeripens at all; but arterwards my mammy told my dukkeripen out o’ the clouds, an’ it wur jist this:  I wur to beware o’ Gorgios, ’cos a Gorgio would come among the Kaulo Camloes an’ break my heart.  An’ I says to her, “Mammy dear, afore my heart shall break for any Gorgio I’ll cut it out with this ‘ere knife,” an’ I draw’d her knife out o’ her frock an’ put it in my own, and here it is.’  And Sinfi pulled out her knife and showed it to me.  ‘An’ now, brother, I’m goin’ to tell you somethink else, an’ what I’m