"Cavaliers, and strong men, this cavalier is the friend of a friend
of mine. Es mucho hombre. There is none like him in Spain. He
speaks the crabbed Gitano though he is an Inglesito."
"We do not believe it," replied several grave voices. "It is not
possible."
"It is not possible, say you? I tell you it is. Come forward,
Balseiro, you who have been in prison all your life, and are always
boasting that you can speak the crabbed Gitano, though I say you
know nothing of it - come forward and speak to his worship in the
crabbed Gitano."
A low, slight, but active figure stepped forward. He was in his
shirt sleeves, and wore a montero cap; his features were handsome,
but they were those of a demon.
He spoke a few words in the broken Gypsy slang of the prison,
inquiring of me whether I had ever been in the condemned cell, and
whether I knew what a Gitana {7} was?
"Vamos Inglesito," shouted Sevilla in a voice of thunder; "answer
the monro in the crabbed Gitano."
I answered the robber, for such he was, and one, too, whose name
will live for many a year in the ruffian histories of Madrid; I
answered him in a speech of some length, in the dialect of the
Estremenian Gypsies.
