“The ays have it.”
Three triumphant cheers for the majority.
The freshman, quite cockahoop at the victory gained over Ap Tydvill and O’Mackerry, ventured to ask the Welshman “how it happened that a leek became the national emblem of Wales?” He readily answered, “When my country was able to lick (query: leek) your country,—I don’t include yours, O’Mackerry,—one of our jolly old princes having gained a great victory over one of your Saxon leaders and his army, took up a chive, which he found growing somewhere near the Wye, and said, ‘We’ll wear this henceforward as a memorial of this victory.’”
“Pooh, pooh,” said the coxswain; “the true version is this. Once upon a time, Wales was so infested with monkeys that the natives were obliged to ask the English to lend them a hand in destroying them. The English generously came to their assistance; but not perceiving any distinction between the Welsh and the monkeys, they killed a great number of the former, by mistake of course; so, in order to distinguish them, clearly, they requested that the Welshmen would stick a leek in their bonnets.” A running fire (though on water) commenced against poor Monsieur Du Leek—as the bantering youngsters, with profound bows and affected gravity, chose to name Ap Tydvill—of pedigree immeasurable.
However, he recovered his serenity, after an explosion of wrath somewhat dangerous for a moment; and, on the free trade principle, began to quiz some one else.
“Mack,” said he, “do you remember the ducking you got there, among the arundines Cami?” pointing to a deep sedgy part of the river.
“I do; and I had, indeed, a narrow escape from drowning, or rather from being suffocated in the deep sludgy mud.”
“How was it?” one of the others asked.
“I was poling a punt along the bank, looking for waterfowl to have a shot, you know, and I pulled myself into the river!”
“You mean, Paddy,” said Mr Tydvill, “that you pulled yourself out of the river.”