A Wit-Provoking Stairway.
But, cui bono? Let’s to more pleasant incidents. After the great disallowance debate over that part of the C.P.R. contract which prevented United States railways from entering the Northwest to tap the business, Sir John A. Macdonald met W. B. Scarth, M.P. for Winnipeg, with myself and several others, at the head of the stairs leading to the restaurant. After a cheery salutation, Sir John remarked, “Well, boys, don’t you think we have had enough of disallowance? Let’s go down and take our allowance.” And we went.
The stairway to the restaurant seems to have been provocative of wit, for, it is said, that on this very spot Sir John once met Bob Watson, as strong a party man of the Liberal type as you could find, and asked him what was going on in the House. “Why,” said Bob, “Cartwright is pitching into Foster on the tariff.”
“Too bad, too bad, that they should be so partisan up there,” said Sir John. “I tell you, Bob, if they were all as independent as you and I are, this country would soon get some blankety fine legislation.”
Speaking of Sir John, I remember years ago, when he came from North Ontario to Whitby during a campaign, and regaled himself, as was the custom of those days, with a drink at the bar of Jake Bryan’s hotel. The crowd naturally joined in the “refresher,” and as Sir John—(he was then only John A.)—lifted his glass, a friend drew his attention to the fact that there was a fly in his grog.
“That’s all right,” he quickly replied. “It’s meat as well as drink, and I’m hungry.”
That caught the crowd, and the remark spread far and wide. The Tory majority in Whitby was never so large as it was in that election.