BEGGARS O.V HORSEBACK^. 



from somewhere near the open door of the par- 

 lour apprised us that this gem of Irish humour 

 was not lost on the apprentice. 



Before we returned to the hotel several things 

 had been accomplished. We were possessors of 

 the chemist's pony for a fortnight ; we had bak- 

 ingly retraced our steps to the ironmonger, and 

 by dint of remaining immutable on the top of 

 the cottage stove, had made a like bargain with 

 him ; and we had interested Welshpool more 

 whole-souledly than any event since the election 

 and the last circus. Coolness and peace awaited 

 us at the Royal Oak Inn, with its thick walls and 

 polished floors, and its associations of the old 

 coaching days, wonderfully striking to an Irish 

 eye, accustomed to connect antiquity with dirt 

 and dilapidation. We have nothing hale and 

 honourable like these hostelries, with their cen- 

 turies of landlord ancestry : we have the modern 

 hotel after its kind, and also the unspeakable pot- 

 house, with creeping things after their kind ; but 

 antiquity, if such there be, is a poor, musty 



