Alison felt uncomfortable, because this idea had been in her mind.
"I'll answer the question, anyway," continued Thorne. "These people and those in the wheat-growing lands across the frontier work twelve and fourteen hours every day. It's always the same unceasing toil with them—they have no diversions. We go round and carry the news from place to place, tell them the latest stories, and now and then sing to them. We don't tax them too much either—a supper when they're poor—a dollar for a mirror or a bottle of elixir, which it must be confessed most of them have no possible use for."
"Did you never do anything else?" Alison inquired; "that is, in Canada?"
"Oh, yes," replied her companion. "I was clerk in an implement store which I walked out of at its proprietor's request after an attack of injudicious candor. You see, a rather big farmer came in one day and spent most of the morning examining our seeders and pointing out their defects. Then he inquired why we had the assurance to demand so much for our implement when he could buy a very much better one several dollars cheaper. I asked him if he was sure of that, and when he said he was I suggested that it would be considerably wiser to go right away and buy it instead of wasting his time and mine. The proprietor desired to know how we expected him to make a living if we talked to customers like that, and I pointed out that we couldn't do so anyway by answering insane questions."
Alison laughed delightedly. She felt that this was not mere rodomontade, but that the man was perfectly capable of doing as he had said.
"Had you any more experiences of the same kind?" she asked.
"I was shortly afterward projected out of a wheat broker's office."
"Projected?"
Thorne grinned.
"I believe that describes it. You see, they were three to one; but I took part of the office fittings along with me. I must own that I lost my temper and insulted them."