My views are not for publication.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,