ideration"--the county member's wife and the would-have-been
member's daughter--on his right and left; nobody thought of politics at
the Glyndewi regatta. Clara was there; but she was escorted into the
room by some odious man, who, in virtue of having been made high-sheriff
by mistake, sat next Miss Anti-reform on the chairman's left. The
natives were civil enough to marshal us pretty high up by right of
strangership, but still I was barely near enough to drink wine with her.

If a man wants a good dinner, a hearty laugh, an opportunity of singing
songs and speech-making, and can put up with indifferent wine, let him
go to the race Ordinary at Glyndewi next year, if it still be among the
things which time has spared. There was nothing like stiffness or
formality: people came there for amusement, and they knew that the only
way to get it was to make it for themselves. There seemed to be fun
enough for half-a-dozen of the common run of such dinners, even while
the ladies remained. It was, as Hanmer called it, an _extra_-ordinary.
But it was when the ladies had retired, and Hanmer and a few of the
"steady ones" had followed them, and those who remained closed up around
the chairman, and cigars and genuine whisky began to supersede the
questionable port and sherry, and the "Vice" requested permission to
call on a gentleman for a song, that we began to fancy ourselves within
the walls of some hitherto unknown college, where the "levelling system"
had mixed up fellows and undergraduates in one common supper-party, and
the portly principal himself rejoiced in the office of "_arbiter
bibendi_." Shall I confess it? I forgot even Clara in the uproarious
mirth that followed. Two of the young Phillipses were admirable singers,
and drew forth the hearty applause of the whole company. We got Dawson
to make a speech, in which he waxed poetical touching the "flowers of
Cambria," and drew down thunders of applause by a Latin quotation, which
every one took that means of showing that they understood. I obtained
almost unconsciously an immortal reputation by a species of flattery
to which the Welsh are most open. I had learnt, after no little
application, a Welsh toast--a happy specimen of the language; it was but
three words, but they were truly cabalistic. No sooner had I, after a
"neat and appropriate" preface, uttered my triple Shibboleth (it ended
in _rag_, and signified "Wales, Welshmen, and Welshwomen"), than the
whole party rose, a