r you to suppose, after seeing that dinner of pork, and hearing
that song, that we had been drabbing baulor; I will now tell you that we
have not been doing so. What have you to say to that?'

'That I am very glad of it.'

'Had you tasted that pork, brother, you would have found that it was
sweet and tasty, which balluva {47b} that is drabbed can hardly be
expected to be. We have no reason to drab baulor at present, we have
money and credit; but necessity has no law. Our forefathers occasionally
drabbed baulor, some of our people may still do such a thing, but only
from compulsion.'

'I see,' said I, 'and at your merry meetings you sing songs upon the
compulsatory deeds of your people, alias their villainous actions; and
after all, what would the stirring poetry of any nation be, but for its
compulsatory deeds? Look at the poetry of Scotland, the heroic part
founded almost entirely on the villainous deeds of the Scotch nation;
cow-stealing, for example, which is very little better than drabbing
baulor; whilst the softer part is mostly about the slips of its females
among the broom, so that no upholder of Scotch poetry could censure
Ursula's song as indelicate, even if he understood it. What do you
think, Jasper?'

'I think, brother, as I before said, that occasionally you utter a word
of common-sense; you were talking of the Scotch, brother; what do you
think of a Scotchman finding fault with Romany?'

'A Scotchman finding fault with Romany, Jasper? Oh dear, but you joke,
the thing could never be.'

'Yes; and at Piramus's fiddle; what do you think of a Scotchman turning
up his nose at Piramus's fiddle?'

'A Scotchman turning up his nose at Piramus's fiddle! nonsense, Jasper.'

'Do you know what I most dislike, brother?'

'I do not, unless it be the constable, Jasper.'

'It is not the constable, it's a beggar on horseback, brother.'

'What do you mean by a beggar on horseback?'

'Why, a scamp, brother, raised above his proper place, who takes every
opportunity of giving himself fine airs. About a week ago, my people and
myself camped on a green by a plantation in the neighbourhood of a great
house. In the evening we were making merry, the girls were dancing,
while Piramus was playing on the fiddle a tune of his own composing, to
which he has given his own name, Piramus of Rome, and which is much
celebrated amongst our people, and from which I have been told that one
of the grand gorgio composers, wh