“It’s enough to get ready,” he continued. “Don’t carry your own stuff down to the boats.”
“Why not?” asked John, curiously. “We can do it easily enough.”
“Well, you’re in another sort of country now,” said Uncle Dick to him, quietly. “Follow customs of the country. You must remember that the Hudson’s Bay Company is a very old monopoly, and it has its own ways. Always it treats the natives as though they were children and it was the Great Father. A factor is a sort of king up here. He wouldn’t think of carrying a pound of his own luggage for anything in the world. If he began that sort of thing the natives would not respect him as their bourgeois.”
“Bourgeois? What does that mean?” asked John, again.
“Well, about the same as boss, I suppose. It’s always necessary in dealing with ignorant and savage peoples to take the attitude that you are the boss, and that they are to do what you tell them. If you get too familiar or lower yourself too much with primitive people, they don’t respect you, because they think you’re afraid of them.
“Now, that has always been the custom of the Hudson’s Bay Company in this work. In the old days, when things were more autocratic, when a factor went on a journey his people picked him up and carried him into his boat, and when he went ashore they picked him up and carried him out again. If anybody got wet or tired or hungry be sure it wasn’t the boss!
“You see, young gentlemen, while I don’t want you, of all things in the world, ever to be snobbish, I do want you to be observant. So just take this advice from me, and let these men do your work right at the start. They expect it, and they will treat you all the better—and of course you will treat them well.”
“Who is that old pirate standing over there by the boat landing?” asked Jesse, presently, pointing to a tall, dark, and sinewy man with full black beard, who seemed to have a certain authority among the laborers.