I spent a happy Christmas at this house and met several Canadian men with their women folk who had come down to spend a quiet Christmas. They were very kind to me and I liked them all immensely. One lady remarked that it was a very good idea to want to spend Christmas with my own people. This was astonishing and pleasing, for most of my friends who had gone over to Canada to do harvesting during the long vacations from Oxford and Cambridge had hated it. It told me one great thing, however, that the Canadian people had grown to know us better, and had evidently decided that every stray home-made Briton was not a remittance man, but might possibly, in spite of his extraordinary way of speaking English, be a comparatively normal person possessing no greater number of faults than other mortals. I found these people very interesting, and one very charming lady introduced me to the poetry of Rupert Brooke. She had one of his volumes of poetry containing an introduction detailing his life.

I read this introduction with much interest. It spoke about the river at Cambridge, just above "Byron's Pool"—a very familiar spot. I had often plunged off the dam into the cool depths above and had even cooked moorhens' eggs on the banks. I will admit that my ignorance of Rupert Brooke and his genius showed a regrettably uninformed mind. I can only murmur with the French shop keepers "c'est la guerre." These people made me very much at home and they all had a good English accent—not the affected kind, but a natural sort of accent.

American people then came in for their share of criticism. The Canadians are learning many lessons from us. I think, of course, that America ought to be in this war, but I do know that all my American men friends would give their last cent to make the President declare war, and I have learnt not to mention the subject.

They were very sympathetic about my having to live with the Yankees. One very nice man said with a smile, I fear of superiority: "And how do you like living with the Yankees?"

I was at a loss to know how to reply. I hate heroics, and I distrust the person who praises his friends behind their backs with too great a show of enthusiasm. It is a kind of newspaper talk and suspicious. Besides, I desired to be effective, to "get across" with praise of my American friends, so I merely stated all the nice things I had ever heard the Americans say about Canada and the Canadians. This took me a long time. They accepted the rebuke like the gentlefolk they were. Still, I thought the feeling about America was very interesting.

Upon my return to the States, I mentioned this to a friend and he said that he knew about the feeling, but he explained that it was really a pose, and was a survival of the feeling from the old revolution days when the loyalists took refuge in Canada. I then gathered that my Canadian friends were merely "high flying after fashion," like Mrs. Boffin in "Our Mutual Friend."

I went to church on the Sunday and enjoyed singing "God Save the King." The minister spoke well, but like the American clergy, he preached an awfully long sermon. Everything seems to go quickly and rapidly over here except the sermons.

I went to a skating rink filled with many soldiers and was asked by a buxom lass where my uniform was, and why was I not fighting for the King. I felt slightly annoyed. However, I enjoyed the skating until a youth in uniform barged into me and passed rude remarks about my clothing generally.

This was too much for my temper, so I strafed him until he must have decided that I was at least a colonel in mufti. He will never be "fresh" to a stranger again, and he left the rink expecting to be court-martialled.

The next day I had influenza, and I remembered my friend in the train at Detroit. However, I went to Toronto and endeavored to buy a light coat at a large store. I am not a very small person, but evidently the attendant disliked me on sight. After he had tried about three coats on me he remarked pleasantly that they only kept men's things in his department, so I strafed him, and left Canada by the very next train. I felt furious. However, I recognised a man I knew on the train whom I had seen at Popperinge near Ypres. He had been a sergeant in the Canadian forces, so we sat down and yarned about old days in "Flounders." He was the dining-room steward. He healed my wounded pride when I told him about the coat incident and said: "Why didn't you crack him over the head, sir! Those sort of fellows come in here with their 'Gard Darm'—but I don't take it now. No, sir!" Still it was fine to visit Canada and I felt very much at home and very proud of the Empire.