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the establishment of Hugh Humphreys, otherwise called Golud yr Oes, because this was the title of a famous series of books issued by him. The rooms of these premises after being long neglected and deserted, or after subsequent prospective buyers and curiosity addicts had tumbled the books haphazardly over the various shelves making for a general mix-up, together with the dust of years and the work of spiders- looked indeed forlorn, dilapidated-a heart-breaking, hopeless confu- sion. Yet strangely enough I was not daunted, despite the seemingly overwhelming magnitude of the challenge! And this was perhaps be- cause I had heard my boss speak of me in praise, to others. For kind words, and the setting of a standard have a most subtle influence, es- pecially so on the mind of a child! The tidying-up here had to be done in preparation for a general sale or Public Auction. My boss had loaned me out, because, as I heard him say between Y Gymraeg, I had 'a happy knack for tidiness'. Perhaps he borrowed part of the phrase from Oliver Goldsmith 'a happy knack for hoping'. Anyway the English words stuck in my mind, and pumped me up quite a deal. They surely had a most stimulating effect on the dynamo of my being, something which determined me to try and square or die, what appeared at the time to be a permanent circle! 'A happy knack for tidiness'. Was this, I wonder, another way of describing some discipline rooted deeply in my nature, some abiding sense of order meant finally to transcend all the vagaries, impulses, waywardness-some instinctive tendency al- ways to steer for a calm harbour in every storm, in every paradoxical situation? Strangely enough, some of the greatest and noblest lines in English poetry are to be found in the sonnets-a tribute to disciplined writing. Perhaps it needs more genius sometimes not so much to say a thing as not to say it-putting a curb on the flux of meaningless wordy froth that would only mess up the world if it was not blown away in time. My school, of course, had been all English, but the language in the large shop where I normally worked was all Welsh except for the occa- sional need to change over so to oblige a customer. And I can't help re- calling that it was always my bad luck to be the one ordered to hunt in the attic for back numbers of the Traethodydd, Y Genhinen, Y Cymru to oblige a distant doctor, parson or preacher, or maybe a German pro- fessor in Heidleburg interested in Welsh literature. Yet for all the sur- rounding Welsh atmosphere some of my first lessons in daily bilin- gualism were mainly taken, in furtive doses, from my boss who took