“Master, you want me to tell you all the truth,—yes? If it's a big
or a little thing, I'll tell the truth, so help me God, upon my life!
The devil be in my soul if I tell the least lie! And what is it? Did I
ever in all my life steal a chicken? and what do the gypsies do with
the feathers, because nobody ever saw any near a gypsy tent? Never,
sir,—I never stole a chicken; and in all the sixty years that
I've been on the roads, in all that time I never saw or heard or knew
of a gypsy's stealing one. What's that you say?—that Petulengro told
you yesterday that he carried a gun to kill chickens! Ah yes,
sir,—that is true, too. The man meant in his heart wood chickens [that
is, pheasants]. But not domestic chickens. Gypsies never steal
them.” {324}