l not commit any further absurdities, though I am not
too sanguine,

I am, Yours faithfully,

FREDERICK PETHERTON.

My views are not for publication. I prefer not to be mixed up in such
a symposium.

It was evident that my neighbour's weapon was beginning to get heated,
so I flicked him with some more light artillery to draw him on, and
loosed off with:--

Dear Old Man,--What a historian you are! You have JOHN RICHARD GREEN
beaten to his knees, FROUDE and GARDINER out of sight, and even the
authoress of the immortal _Little Arthur_ could not have placed EDDY
I. with greater chronological exactitude. In fact there seems to be no
subject on which you cannot write informatively, which makes me sorry
that you will not join in the literary fray in the local paper, as it
deprives the natives of a great treat.

But--there is a but, my dear Fred--I cannot admit your claim to
superior knowledge of the Surbury relics. Remember, I have grown up
with them as it were. Yours ever,

HARRY FORDYCE.

Sir (exploded Petherton),--What senseless drivel you write on the
least provocation! Whether you grew up with the Surbury relics or not,
you have certainly decayed with them. Every stone that's left of that
confounded ruin (probably only a simple market-cross) proclaims the
date of its birth. Even the broken finial and the two crockets lying
on the ground expose your ignorance. Eleanor Cross, bah!

Yours flly., F. PETHERTON.

I thought it was time to emerge from my literary camouflage and let
off a heavy howitzer; which I did, with the following:--

Dear Freddy,--I am afraid you have got hold of the wrong end of the
stick and laid an egg in a mare's nest. [These mixed metaphors were
designed to tease him into a further barrage.] I did not write, and
I do not remember saying that I had written, the letter to the paper
which seems to have given you as much pleasure as it has given me.
I had no hand in the symposium, but the way you have brought your
Chesterfield battery into action has been so masterly that I, for one,
can never regret that you were misinformed. I believe the particular
letter to _The Gazette_ was written by one of the staff, a native of
the place, who probably carved his name on the base in his youth, and
has felt a personal interest in the Cross ever since. I hope with this
new light on the affair you will favour me with your further views on
history and archaeology.

Yours ever, Harry.

How lovely the bl