The Green Forest tribune., 1907-04-19

John sauntered into my office some time ago and sat down without remov ing his hat or his cigar.
 Good morning MT. Jones' l ob- served, looking up, What is your trouble now?"
 T simply dropped in to inquire if you have any acquaintance with Theo- phrastus Foozlehead, of Pelezoic Villa. He is suing me for thousand pounds for not performing a contract and the county council are wanting another because l have performed it. It is a sort of devil CT 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 I have no wish to quarrel with the council
 Well, what is the matter?" l asked. 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 disorderly looking sec tion of the British museum. l first met FooZlehead some years ago. He wanted me to dig a 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 Foozles orders, the men had dug hole deep enough to bury church.
 Its very extraordinary said Foozle, I cant understand it.
 Then his face lightened consider ably, and he invited me to his parlor. where over a 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 a 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. Foczle went back to bed and woke next morn ing with 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 evi- dence proved his presence to Foozle. Ghosts he said, never do.' told him that I had not the slightest doubt that the ghost had called on him, but hint ed that he had been too nasty in act ing on the advice. My advice was to stop digging, fill up the hole and warn all ghosts off the premises. This ul- timately commended itself to Foozle- head, and the investigation ended.
 Recently l contracted to build 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 50 ob- long stones piled up in heaps in his yards that entered into the bargain on their own account, for 1 was to build these into the wall at different points selected by Fooziehead. Accordingly. some weeks ago I 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 l received this letter from the county council inspector:
 Sir, l have to request you within AS hours to remove or deface the whole of the unauthorized milestones which you have built into MT. Foozle heads wall If not done, steps will be taken to enforce this order
 T at once drove to the scene of op- erations and inspected the trouble Fully half of the oblong stones had been embedded in the wall under FooZle's directions. A glance at them showed me the trouble was pretty seri- ous. 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 it mildly, mislead 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, IS miles to Glas- gow and so or, while Dundee itself that was only six miles off was represented by one cold faced liar at $50 miles away. 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, l answered. They've got to be defaced, MT. Foozlehead, and that immediately
 "'Never,' shrieked Foozle.
 "'Why, you blockhead,' I said, you've q quarrel with the county council already over them, and as long as they are there they'll keep you in endless trouble. Every tramp will pretend you have put him on the wrong road and claim damages from you for criminal representation. Nt~, T. T