The Bard Old Willie wears a thing known as. a
dicky, with a ready-tied tie and cuffs to match. It is not that he is a dressy man, for he does not bother to hide the heavy flannel shirt that peeps from behind the starched front, but he has certain conventions in his dress for market, as he has for going to chapel. For market he wears a black overcoat with a velvet collar and carries a raincoat over his arm. His suit is the chapel suit he has worn for many, many years. His headgear is a flat cloth cap. When he goes to chapel he wears a bowler hat and leaves the raincoat at home, but on market-days one is struck by the fluffy hair that protrudefrom under his cap. Those who know him say, with a laugh, that the protruding hair is an affectation on Willie's part. He wants to be clagied as a bard. I met him on his way back from market, and he stopped and gave me a recitation which lasted ten minutes. When I asked him to translate, for I didn't grasp • so much as a word, he declined very politely. " It would be no use," he said sadly. " No use at all, man. The old English would spoil it." I had to be content with that. It would have been a breach of manners to insist on a man putting his verse into a tongue that reflected on his gift as a poet.
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