MORNING SERIAL
‘COME on, boys,’ said Gomer. ‘Let’s run ahead and see these Sheiks. I don’t like the sound of this. Ephraim Humphries is one of the judges today and by all the rules of nature he should be in favour of the band whose uniforms he helped to buy. But he might well operate against the Matadors on the grounds of discouraging self-pride. And did you hear what Onllwyn said about these Sheiks wearing veils?’
‘To keep the sand out of their mouths,’ said Onllwyn. ‘I was puzzled about these veils and I asked their secretary why sheiks should be wearing veils and he said that about the sand.’
‘Ephraim Humphries is going to like the idea of those veils. In everything except his doctrine of damnation for the great majority, he is against the overt.
‘A wholly concealed humanity, beginning with these Aberclydach sheiks, would be quite welcome to Humphries.’
‘No doubt indeed,’ said Onllwyn Meeker.
‘And when he takes a look at Moira Hallam, with that stem in her mouth and the shapes she’s making, he’ll think she swallowed the petals of that rose herself to keep fresh for some new round of sinning.’
The word ‘fresh’ seemed to remind Gomer of something and he told Cynlais to break ranks for a few minutes and take a rest on the grass bank that flanked the road.
‘They can sit down if they like, but carefully and primly so that there won’t be any creases in the uniform. They’ve got that old Colonel Mathews the Moloch, the coal owner, on the panel of judges, and they say he’s a hell of a man for spotting creases.’
Cynlais passed this warning on to his followers as they were taking their places on the grass bank, and there were a lot of interesting postures.
‘There’s another thing,’ said Uncle Edwin, sucking at two blades of some healthful type of grass that had just been passed to him by Caney the Cure, who was with us as a supporter and because there was never much doing in the herb line during the summer.