Our hostesses said the Welsh were dirty housekeepers: "At least
_we_ think so," but I am bound to say their own cooking was
very good; and not being Welsh our hostesses consented to market
for us, except in the article of Spanish melons: these I bought
myself of increasing cost and size. When I alleged, the second
morning, that the melon then sold me for sixpence had been sold
me by another boy for fourpence the day before, my actual Cymric
youth said, "Then he asked you too little," which seemed a _non
sequitur_ but was really an unexpected stroke of logic.
It was the utmost severity used with me by my co-racials in
Llandudno. They were in the great majority of the permanent
inhabitants, but they were easily outnumbered among the
pleasurers by the Saeseneg, whose language prevailed, so that a
chance word of Welsh now and then was all that I heard in the
streets. Some faint stirrings of ambition to follow the language
as far as a phrase-book would lead were not encouraged by the
kindly bookseller who took my money for it; and I did not go on.
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