"'No, sir, I live there as master.'

"'Is the good woman I saw there your wife?'

"'In truth, sir, she is.'

"'And the young girl I saw your daughter?'

"'Yes, sir, she is my daughter.'

"'And how came the good woman not to tell me you were her husband?'

"'I suppose, sir, you did not ask who I was, and she thought you did not
care to know.' . . ."

To multiply instances might cease to be amusing. It may have been
Borrow's right way of getting what he wanted, though it sounds like a
Charity Organization inquisitor. As to the effectiveness of setting down
every step of the process instead of the result, there can hardly be two
opinions, unless the reader prefers an impression of the wandering
inquisitive gentleman to one of the people questioned. Probably these
barren dialogues may be set down to indolence or to the too facile
adoption of a trick. They are too casual and slight to be exact, and on
the other hand they are too literal to give a direct impression.

Luckily he diversified such conversation with stories of poets and
robbers, gleaned from his books or from wayside company. The best of
this company was naturally not the humble homekeeping publican or
cottager, but the man or woman of the roads, Gypsy or Irish. The
vagabond Irish, for example, give him early in the book an effective