A Farmer’s Life 
yield, the owner had revenged himself by leaving 
the place empty, so that it paid no rates at all. 
But, you see, he was such a stubborn man. 
A Primrose Leaguer he had been, a most staunch 
Conservative, until about two years ago. Then, 
however, the Oddfellows (and he was an Odd- 
fellow), with a dinner at an inn toward, had been 
refused the one hour’s extension of time they 
applied for; whereat this one man, this Primrose 
Leaguer, was deeply offended. He wrote letters 
to the local papers complaining of “a Tory 
magistracy,”’ and became a Liberal. Moreover, 
at a recent election he had walked two miles to 
vote for the Liberal candidate. 
But often Mr. Smith’s anecdotes of queer 
people belonged to the older days—his father’s 
days—before Aldershot had been heard of, 
while Farnborough was still a little lost village, 
interested in its own affairs and caring nothing 
for national politics. Yet first for an anecdote 
that seems to have no bearing upon either period. 
It tells of the origin of a certain building now 
used for an asylum. A man called Worthington 
Castle or some such name began it, to be a resi- 
dence for himself. His ambition was that it 
should have as many rooms as there are weeks 
in the year, and as many windows as there are 
days. The bricks were made on his own estate 
and he employed only one bricklayer. This 
66 
