, "your question does honour to your powers of discrimination--a
member of the medical profession I am, though an unworthy one."

"Nay, nay, doctor," said the landlady briskly; "say not so--every one
knows that you are a credit to your profession--well would it be if there
were many in it like you--unworthy? marry come up! I won't hear such an
expression."

"I see," said I, "that I have not only the honour of addressing a medical
gentleman, but a doctor of medicine--however, I might have known as much
by your language and deportment."

With a yet lower bow than before he replied with something of a sigh,
"No, sir, no, our kind landlady and the neighbourhood are in the habit of
placing doctor before my name, but I have no title to it--I am not Doctor
Jones, sir, but plain Geffery Jones at your service," and thereupon with
another bow he sat down.

"Do you reside here?" said I.

"Yes, sir, I reside here in the place of my birth--I have not always
resided here--and I did not always expect to spend my latter days in a
place of such obscurity, but, sir, misfortunes--misfortunes . . ."

"Ah," said I, "misfortunes! they pursue every one, more especially those
whose virtues should exempt them from them. Well, sir, the consciousness
of not having deserved them should be your consolation."

"Sir," said the doctor, taking off his hat, "you are infinitely kind."

"You call this an obscure place," said I--"can that be an obscure place
which has produced a poet? I have long had a respect for Cerrig y
Drudion because it gave birth to, and was the residence of a poet of
considerable merit."

"I was not aware of that fact," said the doctor, "pray what was his
name?"

"Peter Lewis," said I; "he was a clergyman of Cerrig y Drudion about the
middle of the last century, and amongst other things wrote a beautiful
song called Cathl y Gair Mwys, or the melody of the ambiguous word."

"Surely you do not understand Welsh?" said the doctor.

"I understand a little of it," I replied.

"Will you allow me to speak to you in Welsh?" said the doctor.

"Certainly," said I.

He spoke to me in Welsh, and I replied.

"Ha, ha," said the landlady in English; "only think, doctor, of the
gentleman understanding Welsh--we must mind what we say before him."

"And are you an Englishman?" said the doctor.

"I am," I replied.

"And how came you to learn it?"

"I am fond of languages," said I, "and studied Welsh at an early period."

"A