During the next few days occasional questions showed that my guests had carried news of the picture to the camp, and that the tribe hid beneath their affected indifference some curiosity as to how it came to be in my possession. But I was totally unprepared for the demonstration of deep concern which the paltry print was to wring from the great Kola’s dignified wife. Taking me quietly aside she invited me to sit near her, told me that she had heard about the photograph, and expressed a desire to see it. I gladly seized the opportunity to give her a cordial invitation to come with her husband to tea. Without such an excuse I should not have dared to suggest a visit; for, absurd as it may seem to those who do not know these people, I felt instinctively that the chief and his lady were personages of rank so high that it would have been presumptuous to ask them to my poor house. My instinct was probably just, for Tinka refused politely, alleging as excuse the weakness of her chest. Unwilling to renounce the honour of entertaining royalty, I offered to take her and the chief by rail to Liverpool and thence to Alfred Street in a taxicab; and, when this proposal was rejected, to bring the taxicab to the camp, cross the river on the luggage-boat, and take them all the way without change. But Tinka was adamant and demanded that the book should be brought to the tents. The idea of subjecting my treasured album to the eager unwashed hands of working coppersmiths did not commend itself to me, and I replied that the book was too large and too heavy to bring. “Tear the page out” she ordered, royally regardless; but I refused to mutilate the volume. Then she begged, the queenly Tinka, begged just as Lotka had begged for my carpet—earnestly, eloquently, passionately, almost irresistibly. Hardening my heart to withstand this more than usually distressing exhibition of skill in the ancient Gypsy accomplishment, I turned to look at my tormentor—she was weeping bitterly! Instead of a typical case of adroit Gypsy imposture I had found an equally typical case of Gypsy family affection. With a voice broken by sobs she offered in exchange for a brief glance at the picture, first a silver plate a foot in diameter, and then a great gold ring such as she herself wore. For among those whose portraits appeared on the card was her brother, and she had not seen him for twenty years.