XXV 

 THE INSPIRATION OF THE INN 



"As a tree planted by the waters and that spread- 

 eth out her roots by the river, and shall not see 

 when the heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; 

 and shall not be careful in the year of drouth, neither 

 shall it cease from yielding fruit." 



When, one night in the month of January, 1912, 

 the old hotel disappeared in a chariot of fire, an 

 opportunity for doing something monumental as well 

 as practical was presented, and it was a moral cer- 

 tainty in advance that this would be improved to the 

 utmost. The inspirations of the SADDLE AND SIRLOIN 

 CLUB could produce but one result. Essentially 

 educational in its conception, and wholly utilitarian 

 in its character, the Inn stands today and let us 

 hope will stand for generations yet to come a 

 splendid tribute to the land and the era that supplied 

 the seed, the harvest of which is the stupendous daily 

 business at the Yards ! A modern fireproof structure 

 provided with all twentieth century comforts within, 

 its exterior aspects preserve and perpetuate the 

 quaintly picturesque and exquisitely artistic lines of 

 the architecture of rural England of the long ago 

 the present masquerading in the garments of a glo- 

 rious Elizabethan past ! A bit of the old world set 



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