the time.

"I suppose, Mr. Britling," he said, "this barn here dates from the days
of Queen Anne."

"The walls of the yard here are probably earlier: probably monastic.
That grey patch in the corner, for example. The barn itself is
Georgian."

"And here it is still. And this farmyard, here it is still."

Mr. Britling was for flying off again, but Mr. Direck would not listen;
he held on like a man who keeps his grip on a lasso.

"There's one thing I would like to remark about your barn, Mr. Britling,
and I might, while I am at it, say the same thing about your farmyard."

Mr. Britling was held. "What's that?" he asked.

"Well," said Mr. Direck, "the point that strikes me most about all this
is that that barn isn't a barn any longer, and that this farmyard isn't
a farmyard. There isn't any wheat or chaff or anything of that sort in
the barn, and there never will be again: there's just a pianola and a
dancing floor, and if a cow came into this farmyard everybody in the
place would be shooing it out again. They'd regard it as a most
unnatural object."

He had a pleasant sense of talking at last. He kept right on. He was
moved to a sweeping generalisation.