Shall we describe the spacious apartment, which was at once
kitchen, hall, and dining-room,--the large dark rafters, the
pendent bacon and onions, the strong old oaken furniture, the
bright and trimly-arranged utensils? Shall we describe the cut of
Ap-Llymry's coat, the colour and tie of his neckcloth, the number
of buttons at his knees,--the structure of Mrs. Ap-Llymry's cap,
having lappets over the ears, which were united under the chin,
setting forth especially whether the bond of union were a pin or a
ribbon? We shall leave this tempting field of interesting
expatiation to those whose brains are high-pressure steam-engines
for spinning prose by the furlong, to be trumpeted in paid-for
paragraphs in the quack's corner of newspapers: modern literature
having attained the honourable distinction of sharing, with
blacking and Macassar oil, the space which used to be monopolised
by razor-strops and the lottery; whereby that very enlightened
community, the reading public, is tricked into the perusal of much
exemplary nonsense; though the few who see through the trickery
have no reason to complain, since as "good wine needs no bush," so,
ex vi oppositi, these bushes of venal panegyric point out very
clearly that the things they celebrate are not worth reading.

The party dined very comfortably in a corner most remote from the
fire: and Mr. Chainmail very soon found his head swimming with two
or three horns of ale, of a potency to which even he was
unaccustomed. After dinner Ap-Llymry made him finish a bottle of
mead, which he willingly accepted, both as an excuse to remain and
as a drink of the dark ages, which he had no doubt was a genuine
brewage from uncorrupted tradition.