I doubt if the two hundred odd acres ever yielded so large an income as I now receive semi-annually from the treasurer of the club, but this does not appeal to my Uncle Henry.
"It is an outrage," he once said to me, with unnecessary adjectives, "to use the fine old farmhouse, sacred to long generations of Smiths, as an ell to a club house."
He said other things which I will not repeat. He is a banker, and I sincerely hope Chilvers does not hit him with a golf ball. That infernal slice of Chilvers' has already cost me one legacy.
I have traced my ancestry as far back as I dare, and have a certain amount of reverence for hallowed traditions and all that sort of thing. I must admit there have been times when I have almost imagined that the shades of three generations of more or less distinguished Smiths were holding an indignation meeting to protest against this golf invasion of their mundane haunts.
Where my great-grandmother once sang over her spinning wheel there has been installed a modern shower bath. The huge old-fashioned dining-room, with its cavernous fireplace, is now lined on three sides with lockers. The place above it which was once filled with the blackened oil portrait of our original Smith is now adorned with an engraving of Harry Varden at the finish of his drive.
This picture of Varden's is said to be the best likeness yet produced of this truly remarkable man. I have studied it for hours, but cannot understand how he can grip a club as he does without hooking his ball.
All the bed-chambers on the second floor have been thrown into one large room, which is used as a gymnasium. As near as I can make out, the place where I once knelt to say my prayers is now occupied by a punching bag.
The ceiling has been removed, which, of course, does away with the attic, and trapeze ropes now hang from rafters where successive grandmothers suspended peppermint, pennyroyal and other weeds and herbs possessing medicinal or culinary virtues.
I confess it does look a bit odd, but it makes a ripping good gym.
Certain it is that the old farm never looked as beautiful as it does now. The cow pasture once flanked with boggy marshes has been drained and rolled until the turf is smooth as velvet. The cornfields have disappeared. The straggling stone walls have been converted into bunkers, and the whole area has been converted into a park.