Gilpin observer., 1907-06-06
FOOZIehead'S
Fence
BY A. w. Gordon
Copyright. by Joseph B. powle..,

John sauntered into my office some
time ago and sat down without remov-
ing his hat or his cigar.
Good morning Mr.. JONES'" / OBJ
served, looking up. ':What is your
trouble now?"
Il simply dropped in to inquire If
you have any acquaintance with Theo-
phrastus Foozlehead, of Pelezoic Villa
He Is suing me for a thousand pounds
for not performing contract and the
county council are wanting another
because l have performed it. 1t is a
sort of devil or the deep sea compli-
cation made more picturesque by the
fact that Foozlehead already owes me
a big account which he won't pay and
for business reasons l have no wish
to quarrel with the council"
WELL what is the matter?" l asked.
1.-THE old fool calls himself an anti
quarian." he continued, buys up old
coins, old armour and all kinds of his
toric remnants. He lives in the neigh
borhood of an old Roman camp, and
his house is a disorderly looking sec
tion of the British museum. l first
met Foozlehead some years ago. He
wanted me to dig hole in his back
garden He wished to sink pump, he
said. put a gang of men on the job,
and some days after looked in to in
spect Under Foozle's orders. the
men had dug a hole deep enough to
bury church.
Its very extraordinary said
Foozle, I can't understand it.
Then his face lightened consider
ably, and he invited me to his parlor,
where over temperate refreshment
he explained the object of his digging
operations. The explanation was
simply this:
'One evening in the previous week,
he said, an old Roman who had been
living in comfortable grave in the
Camp got up and sauntered over and
rooted him out of bed, and beckoned
him to follow. Foozle only waited to
put on his slippers and followed. The
ghost led the way to Foozle's back
garden and pointing to a certain spot
with his forefinger, disappeared Foozle
went back to bed and woke next morn
ing with a bad cold, which he had no
doubt the Roman was responsible for.
His slippers, too, showed signs of the
garden, and the garden itself showed
signs of the slippers. The Roman left
no footprints, and this negative evil
dence proved his presence to FooZle.
Ghosts he said, never do told him
that l had not the slightest doubt that
the ghost had called on him, but hint
ed that he had been too hasty in act
ing on the advice. My advice was to
stop digging, fill up the hole and warn
all ghosts of the premises. This ul-
timately commended itself to Foozle-
head, and the investigation ended.
Recently l contracted to build a
six foot wall around his grounds. His
place lies at an angle of the highway
and two separate roads form part of
the boundaries. He had about so OBJ
long stones piled up in heaps in his
yards that entered into the bargain on
their own account, for was to build
these into the wall at different points
selected by Foozlehead. Accordingly,
some weeks ago 1 started my men on
the wall and left them to complete it,
which they could easily have done.
They were proceeding with the work
when received this letter from the
county council inspector:
"'Sir, have to request you within
4S hours to remove or deface the
! whole of the unauthorized milestones
which you have built into Mr. Foozle-
heads wall If not done, steps will be
taken to enforce this order
i 30
erations and inspected the trouble.
Fully half of the oblong stonez had
been embedded in the wall under
Foozle's directions. A glance at them
showed me the trouble was pretty seri-
Gus. They appeared to be a crowd of
aged or superannuated milestones that
the wretched Foozle had collected
from the four ends of the earth.
Originally planted they had no doubt
! represented more or less accurately
the distances to various towns that
| were hundreds of miles apart; but
stuck up together the effect was
grotesque and to put 1t mildly. mlslead-
ing. The inscriptions on some of them
brought that fact pretty forcibly
home: Ten miles to London Five
miles to Dublin Three miles to Cork
40 miles to York. '1S miles to Glas-
gow,' and so on, while Dundee
/ itself that was only six miles
off was represented by one cold
faced liar at $50 miles away.
l sat down on the opposite side
OF the road and sent for Foozle. The
old lunatic came light-hearted and
triumphant.
Don't they look nice?' he asked.
"No they don't. I answered.
They've got to be defaced. Mr..
Foozlehead, and that Immediately"
"'Never!' shrieked Foozle.
"'Why, you blockhead.' ! said,