Flour for Lady Macdonald.
When John Niblock was superintendent of the C.P.R. at Medicine Hat, Sir John and Lady Macdonald passed through to the Coast on the second transcontinental train from the east. John was out on the line, and missed the Chief—but disappointed as he was, he was not altogether phazed. He wired to Medicine Hat for the agent to send a bouquet of flowers to the Earnscliffe, the car Sir John always used. The telegraph operator was a green hand, and couldn’t send very well, so when the wire reached Calgary, it read:
“Send boq flour to Lady Macdonald with my compliments. (Sgd.) John Niblock.”
The operator couldn’t make out what a “boq”—the contraction for bouquet—meant, and so substituted “bag.” When the agent lumbered down to the Earnscliffe, the steward absolutely refused the flour as he was already stocked up. So Lady Macdonald lost both the bouquet and the bag of flour.