ANSWERS TO CORRESPONDENTS.
STEAM-ROLLING EXPERIENCES.—That you should have endeavoured to have turned the birthday-gift of your eccentric nephews to account, and made an offer to the Municipality of West Bloxham to "set" the High Street for them by going over it with the seventeen-ton steam-roller, with which your youthful relatives had presented you, was only a nice and generous impulse on your part; and it is undeniably a great pity that, owing to your not fully understanding the working of the machine, you should have torn away the front of three of the principal shops, finally going through the floor of a fourth, and getting yourself apparently permanently embedded in a position from which you cannot extricate yourself, in the very centre of the leading thoroughfare. Your idea of getting out of the difficulty by presenting the steam-roller then and there to the Borough was a happy one, and it is to be regretted that, under the circumstances, they felt no inclination to accept your offer. Their threat of further proceedings against you unless you take immediate steps to remove your machine, though, perhaps, to be expected, is certainly a little unhandsome. Perhaps your best plan will be to try and start your Steam-roller as a "Suburban Omnibus Company," as you propose. Certainly secure that Duke you mention for Chairman, and, with one or two good City names on the Directorate, it is possible you may be successful in your efforts to float the affair.
Meantime, since the proprietor of the premises in which your Steam-roller has fixed itself refuses to allow you to try to remove it by dynamite, leave it where it is. Put the whole matter into the hands of a sharp local lawyer, and go on to the Continent until it has blown over.
