ic languages and literature, and asked the
Lion who he conceived Finn-Ma-Coul to be? and whether he did not consider
the "Ode to the Fox," by Red Rhys of Eryry, to be a masterpiece of
pleasantry? Receiving no answer to these questions from the Lion, who,
singular enough, would frequently, when the writer put a question to him,
look across the table, and flatly contradict some one who was talking to
some other person, the writer dropped the Celtic languages and
literature, and asked him whether he did not think it a funny thing that
Temugin, generally called Genghis Khan, should have married the daughter
of Prester John? {8} The Lion, after giving a side-glance at the writer
through his left spectacle glass, seemed about to reply, but was
unfortunately prevented, being seized with an irresistible impulse to
contradict a respectable doctor of medicine, who was engaged in
conversation with the master of the house at the upper and farther end of
the table, the writer being a poor ignorant lad, sitting of course at the
bottom. The doctor, who had served in the Peninsula, having observed
that Ferdinand the Seventh was not quite so bad as had been represented,
the Lion vociferated that he was ten times worse, and that he hoped to
see him and the Duke of Wellington hanged together. The doctor, who,
being a Welshman, was somewhat of a warm temper, growing rather red, said
that at any rate he had been informed that Ferdinand the Seventh knew
sometimes how to behave himself like a gentleman--this brought on a long
dispute, which terminated rather abruptly. The Lion having observed that
the doctor must not talk about Spanish matters with one who had visited
every part of Spain, the doctor bowed, and said he was right, for that he
believed no people in general possessed such accurate information about
countries as those who had travelled them as bagmen. On the Lion asking
the doctor what he meant, the Welshman, whose under jaw began to move
violently, replied, that he meant what he said. Here the matter ended,
for the Lion, turning from him, looked at the writer. The writer,
imagining that his own conversation hitherto had been too trivial and
common-place for the Lion to consider worth his while to take much notice
of it, determined to assume a little higher ground, and after repeating a
few verses of the Koran, and gabbling a little Arabic, asked the Lion
what he considered to be the difference between the Hegira and the
Chr