"Oh!" says he, "it's the same time since I left the sod. It was for killing a landlord."
Now as this man came from New Brunswick, and as I came from Ontario, it may readily be seen that we have both become Albertans.
"Are you not ashamed to deceive a woman like me, and an ignoramus who is travelling north to gain instruction?" I ask of him.
"Woman! You're no woman. I mean you're no ignoramus—and, although you question us, I perceive you know more about the north than all of us. But seeing you wish to be further instructed, come with me to the freight shed that I may show you how the wholesale houses pack their goods. Believe me, Lady, I cut to the root of the matter when I say the only downright packers in this north country are the Hudson's Bay Company. You can plainly see this for yourself, and I hope you will inform the Board of Trade about it when you go home. Here, you will observe a set of scales, but the weights were insecurely attached and have been lost.
"This heap of refuse is the remains of a shipment of crockery that was crated too lightly. Errant improvidence, I call it. Lady, the pitcher is no longer broken at the fountain: it is our habit here to break it on the portage. It is no exaggeration when I say I am worked like a transcontinental railway system, hammering up boxes or shovelling out damaged merchandise.
"Cast your eye up at these chairs in the rafters, six dozen of them by actual count, sent north by a furniture house last year but delivery was refused by the purchaser."
"They look like good chairs," say I, "what is the matter with them?"
"Matter enough," he continues, "shipped as 'knocked-down' furniture, four legs to each chair, all of them hind legs. This was a matter of considerable vexation to the purchaser, who paid cash for the goods and for their transportation."
"But the furniture house will send the front legs," I argue.
"Might as well try to get blood out of sawdust," says he. Now, personally, I think this simile is an inconclusive one, for I have known timbermen to sweat great drops of blood into sawdust, and there is no reason why those drops could not be extracted.