“Why, he went to Llangollen, your honour, and died of a drunken fever in less than a month.”
“Well, but might he not have died of the same, if he had remained at home?”
“No, your honour, no! he lived here many a year, and never died of a drunken fever; he was rather fond of liquor, it is true, but he never died at Bala of a drunken fever; but when he went to Llangollen he did. Now, your honour, if there is not something more drunken about Llangollen than about Bala, why did my nephew die at Llangollen of a drunken fever?”
“Really,” said I, “you are such a close reasoner, that I do not like to dispute with you. One observation, however, I wish to make: I have lived at Llangollen without, I hope, becoming a drunkard.”
“Oh, your honour is out of the question,” said the Celtic waiter, with a strange grimace. “Your honour is an Englishman, an English gentleman, and of course could live all the days of your life at Llangollen without being a drunkard, he he! Who ever heard of an Englishman, especially an English gentleman, being a drunkard, he he he! And now, your honour, pray excuse me, for I must go and see that your honour’s dinner is being got ready in a suitable manner.”
Thereupon he left me, with a bow yet lower than any I had previously seen him make. If his manners put me in mind of those of a Frenchman, his local prejudices brought powerfully to my recollection those of a Spaniard. Tom Jenkins swears by Bala and abuses Llangollen, and calls its people drunkards, just as a Spaniard exalts his own village, and vituperates the next and its inhabitants, whom, though he will not call them drunkards, unless, indeed, he happens to be a Gallegan, he will not hesitate to term “una caterva de pillos y embusteros.”
The dinner when it appeared was excellent, and consisted of many more articles than I had ordered. After dinner, as I sat “trifling” with my cold brandy-and-water, an individual entered—a short, thick, dumpy man about thirty, with brown clothes and a broad hat, and holding in his hand a large leather bag. He gave me a familiar nod, and passing by the table, at which I sat, to one near the window, he flung the bag upon it, and seating himself in the chair with his profile towards me, he untied the bag, from which he poured a large quantity of sovereigns upon the table, and fell to counting them. After counting them three times, he placed them again in the bag, which he tied up; then taking a small book, seemingly an account-book, out of his pocket, he wrote something in it with a pencil; then putting it in his pocket, he took the bag, and unlocking a beaufet which stood at some distance behind him against the wall, he put the bag into a drawer; then again locking the beaufet, he sat down in the chair, then tilting the chair back upon its hind legs, he kept swaying himself backwards and forwards upon it, his toes sometimes upon the ground, sometimes mounting until they tapped against the nether side of the table, surveying me all the time with a queer kind of a side glance, and occasionally ejecting saliva upon the carpet in the direction of the place where I sat.
“Fine weather, sir,” said I at last, rather tired of being skewed and spit at in this manner.
“Why yaas,” said the figure; “the day is tolerably fine, but I have seen a finer.”
“Well, I don’t remember to have seen one,” said I; “it is as fine a day as I have seen during the present season, and finer weather than I have seen during this season I do not think I ever saw before.”