"Merely technically, Mr. Timmins. I have been perhaps a little too anxious to improve your neighbourhood, but I should like to point out that I am the largest taxpayer in your district, that these cottages were built with local material and by local labour, and, really, in asking you to strain a point in my favour, I do not think I am overstepping the limits which a beggar should not cross."
"Your agent has made much of the local material and local labour argument, also the tax-paying duties which your lordship performs. This, I respectfully submit, is simply one form of coercion. To put the matter in a nutshell, if Bill Stiles built an out-house without submitting his plans to the Council he would promptly be made to tear it down again. I fail to see why the Council should be asked to make any distinction between Stiles and Stranleigh. This matter was threshed out when the defendant was a much more important person than Lord Stranleigh. I refer to the action of a District Council in Sussex, who requested his lordship, Mr. Justice Grantham, Judge of the King's Bench Division, to tear down the cottages he had erected without the authorisation of the District Council."
"Oh, well," laughed Stranleigh, "if I am in the same box as one of his Majesty's judges, I could not ask better company. Mr. Chairman, and members of the Council, I thank you very much
