"A rum idea! however, lest
conversation should lag, I'll give it you. First of all, however,
a glass of champagne to each."
After we had each taken a glass of champagne, the jockey commenced
his history.
CHAPTER XLI
The Jockey's Tale--Thieves' Latin--Liberties with Coin--The Smasher
in Prison--Old Fulcher--Every One has His Gift--Fashion of the
English.
"My grandfather was a shorter, and my father was a smasher; the one
was scragg'd, and the other lagg'd."
I here interrupted the jockey by observing that his discourse was,
for the greater part, unintelligible to me.
"I do not understand much English," said the Hungarian, who, having
replenished and resumed his mighty pipe, was now smoking away;
"but, by Isten, I believe it is the gibberish which that great
ignorant Valther Scott puts into the mouths of the folks he calls
gypsies."
"Something like it, I confess," said I, "though this sounds more
genuine than his dialect, which he picked up out of the canting
vocabulary at the end of the 'English Rogue,' a book which, however
despised, was written by a remarkable genius. What do you call the
speech you were using?" said I, addressing myself to the jockey.
"Latin," said the jockey, very coolly, "that is, that dialect of it
which is used by the light-fingered gentry.
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