] If
not, why not? Perhaps you would like to dispute the existence of a
castle on the site where the Castle Farm now stands, and where such
shameless profiteering is carried on in eggs and butter?
By the way, how is your poultry? I notice that your _seizieme siecle_
rooster wants his tail remodelling. Perhaps you are not worrying about
new plumage for him till after the War, though it seems like carrying
patriotism to absurd lengths.
Yours sincerely,
HENRY J. FORDYCE.
I hope you will allow your letter to be published in _The Gazette_.
In reply to this Petherton discharged with:--
SIR,--I am not concerned with the castle, which may or may not have
existed in Surbury, nor am I interested in your friend's monograph on
Eleanor Crosses. Other people besides yourself have the impudence to
rush into print on matters of which they are sublimely ignorant.
Perhaps I had better inform you that EDWARD I. reigned at the end
of the thirteenth and the beginning of the fourteenth centuries
(1272-1307), not in the fifteenth, and a very slight knowledge of
architecture would convince you that the Surbury relics are not
earlier than the fifteenth century.
Trusting you will not commit any further absurdities, though I am not
too sanguine,
I am, Yours faithfully,
FREDERICK PETHERTON.
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