Myself—­This is a very hopeful plan of yours, my friend:  and in what manner do you propose that we shall travel?

Antonio—­I will tell you, brother.  I have a gras in the stall, even the one which I purchased at Olivencas, as I told you on a former occasion; it is good and fleet, and cost me, who am a gipsy, fifty chule:  upon that gras you shall ride.  As for myself, I will journey upon the macho.

Myself—­Before I answer you, I shall wish you to inform me what business it is which renders your presence necessary in Castumba:  your son-in-law Paco told me that it was no longer the custom of the gipsies to wander.

Antonio—­It is an affair of Egypt, brother, and I shall not acquaint you with it; peradventure it relates to a horse or an ass, or peradventure it relates to a mule or a macho; it does not relate to yourself, therefore I advise you not to inquire about it—­Dosta.  With respect to my offer, you are free to decline it; there is a drungruje between here and Madrilati, and you call travel it in the birdoche, or with the dromalis; but I tell you, as a brother, that there are chories upon the drun, and some of them are of the Errate.

—­Certainly few people in my situation would have accepted the offer of this singular gipsy.  It was not, however, without its allurements for me; I was fond of adventure, and what more ready means of gratifying my love of it than by putting myself under the hands of such a guide?  There are many who would have been afraid of treachery, but I had no fears on this point, as I did not believe that the fellow harbored the slightest ill-intention towards me; I saw that he was fully convinced that I was one of the Errate, and his affection for his own race, and his hatred for the Busne, were his strongest characteristics.  I wished moreover to lay hold of every opportunity of making myself acquainted with the ways of the Spanish gipsies, and an excellent one here presented itself on my first entrance into Spain.  In a word, I determined to accompany the gipsy.  “I will go with you,” I exclaimed; “as for my baggage, I will dispatch it to Madrid by the birdoche.”  “Do so, brother,” he replied, “and the gras will go lighter.  Baggage, indeed!—­what need of baggage have you?  How the Busne on the road would laugh if they saw two Cales with baggage behind them!”

During my stay at Badajoz I had but little intercourse with the Spaniards, my time being chiefly devoted to the gipsies:  with whom, from long intercourse with various sections of their race in different parts of the world, I felt myself much more at home than with the silent, reserved men of Spain, with whom a foreigner might mingle for half a century without having half a dozen words addressed to him, unless he himself made the first advances to intimacy, which after all might be rejected with a shrug and a no entiendo; for among the many deeply rooted prejudices of these people is the strange idea that no foreigner can speak their language, an idea to which they will still cling though they hear him conversing with perfect ease; for in that case the utmost that they will concede to his attainments is, “Habla quatro palabras y nada mas.” (He can speak four words, and no more.)