Phil had taken the journey to Montreal so often with his father that he felt entirely at home in the Canadian metropolis, and knew just what to do when he reached there early on the following morning after leaving New London. With quite the air of an old traveller, and a slight feeling of contempt for the fluttering anxiety of those who were about to undergo their first experience with customs officers, he handed both his check and the key of his trunk to the Windsor Hotel porter, requested him to send the trunk to the Canadian Pacific station after it should have been examined, and stepped into the waiting hotel bus, with his mind relieved of all further anxiety concerning that portion of the business. As the overland train would not leave until evening, he now had the whole day before him, and was consequently free from hurry or worry of any kind.
After a capital breakfast, to which he devoted an hour of his ample leisure, he strolled into the great rotunda. Here he wrote a note to his aunt Ruth on the hotel paper, and felt imposed upon by being obliged to pay three cents for a Canadian stamp with which to send a letter out of the country, into which a two-cent American stamp would bring it. This was so clearly an extravagance that Phil decided to deny himself the luxury of letter-writing until he should come once more within the lines of the United States mail-service. Having settled upon this plan for saving money, he purchased a silver souvenir spoon, the handle of which was surmounted by the Canadian beaver, and mailed it, together with his letter, to his aunt Ruth.
Phil argued that though this might appear extravagant, it really was not; for in return for all her kindness he owed something to his dear aunt, whose hobby was the collecting of souvenir spoons. Besides, if he neglected this opportunity for the securing of one of those beaver spoons, he probably would not meet with another.
This transaction had hardly been finished when the hotel porter, with a touch of the hat that drew a quarter from Phil’s pocket, handed him the key of his trunk, and announced that it awaited him in the Canadian Pacific station. So Phil strolled down to the superb building that rears its massive granite front like that of a mediæval castle a short distance below the Windsor, bought his ticket, and checked his trunk to Victoria. Then, for twenty dollars more, he engaged a lower berth in a sleeping-car that would run to Vancouver without change.
These expenditures reduced his available cash to a one-hundred-dollar bill and a twenty. As the latter would be needed for meals, etc., en route, he tucked it into a vest pocket, but the larger bill he restored to his pocket-book, which now looked so flat it was hard to realize it was not empty.
While he was struggling to recommit this to the security of its safety-pins, and the sleeping-car clerk was watching him with a slight smile that caused the lad’s face to flush, he became conscious that a young fellow, apparently a few years older than himself, was standing near, and regarding his precautions for securing his money with something very like a sneer.
Instantly Phil was seized with a hot indignation, under the impulse of which he blurted out, “Well, sir! I trust that I afford you sufficient amusement to excuse your rudeness.”
“Excuse me,” said the young man. “Were you addressing me? I am glad you spoke, for I see by your ticket that we are to be travelling companions together across the continent. My name is Goldollar—Simon Goldollar—and I am from New York. I presume you also are from the States?”
Completely disarmed by this polite speech, and feeling heartily ashamed of his own, Phil accepted the stranger’s advances, and allowed himself to be drawn into a conversation. At the same time he was not at all prepossessed by the other’s appearance or manner. Still, he reflected that if they were to be shut up in the same car together for the next five or six days, it would be much pleasanter that they should be on friendly terms than otherwise. So he told Mr. Simon Goldollar his own name, confided to him that he was on his way to Alaska, and they walked out of the station together.
“Going to Alaska, are you?” asked the stranger. “Taking the regular tourist trip, I suppose?”