IN THE SMOKING ROOM 157 
Somebody or other would ask him if, when he 
missed a big trout, he addressed the surrounding 
air in fluent Welsh. ‘Ah, that is not amongst 
my accomplishments,” he would reply, “unless I 
am hard put to it. . . . By the way, did you ever 
hear about the two Welsh colliers coming back 
from work? When crossing a bridge they saw 
two men fighting below. One of the colliers, 
pointing to the two men, said: ‘And who is that 
down by there 1 shouldn’t wonder?’ And his 
mate replied: ‘ Well, indeed, I do not know, so 
they do tell me!’”” The Major was encored for 
this, and he proceeded: ‘Then there is the tale 
of a Welsh mate in a windjammer, having some 
trouble with a young hand. The mate said to 
the lad: ‘Come here, Di Jones, come here, you 
little rascal ; I was tell you six or five times once 
before that your face was like a mice, and if I 
run you | will overtake you till I catch you, and 
I will smack your back before your face.’”” 
One evening, at an hotel largely filled with 
grayling fishermen, I fell in with rather a character. 
He had just come back from military service 
abroad, and was soon off to India on some 
Government work. Saying he was anxious to 
send his son to a good public school at home, he 
asked if anybody could tell him of a really good 
school. Everybody seemed interested in the 
intellectual quest. A learned man said that at 
one school, in addition to a sound all-round 
education, the classics received special attention. 
‘No, I don’t want the classics,” said he. Other 
