Inn at Beth Gelert—Delectable Company—Lieutenant P---.
The inn or hotel at Beth Gelert was a large and commodious building, and
was anything but thronged with company; what company, however, there was,
was disagreeable enough, perhaps more so than that in which I had been
the preceding evening, which was composed of the scum of Manchester and
Liverpool; the company amongst which I now was, consisted of seven or
eight individuals, two of them were military puppies, one a tallish
fellow, who though evidently upwards of thirty, affected the airs of a
languishing girl, and would fain have made people believe that he was
dying of _ennui_ and lassitude. The other was a short spuddy fellow,
with a broad ugly face and with spectacles on his nose, who talked very
consequentially about “the service” and all that, but whose tone of voice
was coarse and his manner that of an under-bred person; then there was an
old fellow about sixty-five, a civilian, with a red carbuncled face; he
was father of the spuddy military puppy, on whom he occasionally cast
eyes of pride and almost adoration, and whose sayings he much applauded,
especially certain _doubles entendres_, to call them by no harsher term,
directed to a fat girl, weighing some fifteen stone, who officiated in
the coffee-room as waiter. Then there was a creature to do justice to
whose appearance would require the pencil of a Hogarth. He was about
five feet three inches and a quarter high, and might have weighed, always
provided a stone weight had been attached to him, about half as much as
the fat girl. His countenance was cadaverous and was eternally agitated
by something between a grin and a simper. He was dressed in a style of
superfine gentility, and his skeleton fingers were bedizened with tawdry
rings. His conversation was chiefly about his bile and his secretions,
the efficacy of licorice in producing a certain effect, and the
expediency of changing one’s linen at least three times a day; though had
he changed his six, I should have said that the purification of the last
shirt would have been no sinecure to the laundress. His accent was
decidedly Scotch: he spoke familiarly of Scott and one or two other
Scotch worthies, and more than once insinuated that he was a member of
Parliament. With respect to the rest of the company I say nothing, and
for the very sufficient reason that, unlike the above described batch,
they did not seem disposed to be impertinent towards me.
Eager to get out of such society I retired early to bed. As I left the
room the diminutive Scotch individual was describing to the old
simpleton, who on the ground of the other’s being a “member,” was
listening to him with extreme attention, how he was labouring under an
access of bile owing to his having left his licorice somewhere or other.
I passed a quiet night, and in the morning breakfasted, paid my bill, and
departed. As I went out of the coffee-room the spuddy, broad-faced
military puppy with spectacles was vociferating to the languishing
military puppy, and to his old simpleton of a father, who was listening
to him with his usual look of undisguised admiration, about the absolute
necessity of kicking Lieutenant P--- out of the army for having disgraced
“the service.” Poor P---, whose only crime was trying to defend himself
with fist and candlestick from the manual attacks of his brutal
messmates.