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 archæology.
Yours ever, Harry.
How lovely the blackberries are looking after the rain!
But I couldn't draw Petherton's fire again, for his gun had been
knocked out by this direct hit.
* * * * *
[Illustration: _Excitable Lady (describing to wounded Tommies the
appearance of a bomb-hole on the London Front)._ "You could have
buried a horse in it. You never saw such a thing in your life!"]
* * * * *