A Farmer’s Life 
“old tales””—so suggestive of country doings. 
So he talked—even a little unwillingly at times ; 
yet oftener as if he couldn’t help it, whenever 
some remark could be illustrated by a telling 
anecdote from his own long experience. 
Such an anecdote—how was it called up, I 
wonder ?—related to old Mr. Calloway, who long 
ago had befriended his (John Smith’s) father as 
a young man. Mr. Calloway employed a man 
who disliked being hurried. Being urged to 
““Get on, Jack; get that finished,” Jack answered, 
‘““'What’s the good, master? You knows very 
well as soon as I get this job done you got another 
looked out for me.” 
Human affairs went on for Mr. Smith at a 
deeper level, I mean with a closer touch on daily 
life, than is reached by political theory; and that 
was well for me, for in politics we only agreed in 
differing. The Licensing Bill of 1908 found 
us quite at odds. But our discussions of it 
brought back to my uncle’s memory just the sort 
of anecdote—perverse, deplorable, yet with more 
than a touch of the comic—which pleased him 
to tell. 
In his young days, he said, public-houses were 
open all night, or at any rate they were hardly 
closed before it was time to reopen. Then he 
recalled a certain ‘‘ old Tom, a bad old chap,” 
who took advantage of this circumstance. 
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