His success is all the more wonderful when his position and his almost total lack of condescension and concession are considered, but considered they must be. When he met a Welsh clergyman who could talk about the Welsh language, Huw Morus and ale, he said nothing about him except that he was "a capital specimen of the Welsh country clergyman. His name was Walter Jones." Too often he merely got answers to his questions, which break up his pages in an agreeable manner, but do little more. In such conversations we should fare ill indeed if one of the parties were not Borrow, and even as it is, he can be tedious beyond the limits necessary for truth. I will give an example: "After a little time I entered into conversation with my guide. He had not a word of English. 'Are you married?' said I. "'In truth I am, sir.' "'What family have you?' "'I have a daughter.' "'Where do you live?' "'At the house of the Rhyadr.' "'I suppose you live there as servant?' "'No, sir, I live there as master.' "'Is the good woman I saw there your wife?' "'In truth, sir, she is.' "'And the young girl I saw your daughter?' "'Yes, sir, she is my daughter.' "'And how came the good woman not to tell me you were her husband?' "'I suppose, sir, you did not ask who I was, and she thought you did not care to know.' . . ." To multiply instances might cease to be amusing. It may have been Borrow's right way of getting what he wanted, though it sounds like a Charity Organization inquisitor. As to the effectiveness of setting down every step of the process instead of the result, there can hardly be two opinions, unless the reader prefers an impression of the wandering inquisitive gentleman to one of the people questioned. Probably these barren dialogues may be set down to indolence or to the too facile adoption of a trick. They are too casual and slight to be exact, and on the other hand they are too literal to give a direct impression. Luckily he diversified such conversation with stories of poets and robbers, gleaned from his books or from wayside company. The best of this company was naturally not the humble homekeeping publican or cottager, but the man or woman of the roads, Gypsy or Irish. The vagabond Irish, for example, give him early in the book an effective contrast to the more quiet Welsh; his guide tells how they gave him a terrible fright: