“What?” said John, with sudden interest, “Uncle boss, eh?”
“Yes,” said the unblushing Coley.
“Huh! Coley heap fool! Get chicken, quick! meat shop, small, eh?” The Chinaman was at last aroused. Pots, pans, and other utensils were in immediate requisition, a roaring fire set a-going, and in three-quarters of an hour the colonel sat down to a dinner of soup, fish, and fowl, with various entrees and side dishes that would have done credit to a New York chef. Thus potent was the name of the boss with his cook.
John's excellent dinner did much to soothe and mollify his guest; but the colonel was sensitive to impressions other than the purely gastronomic, for throughout the course of the dinner, his eyes wandered to the photographs on the wall, and in fancy he was once more in the presence of the two women, to whom he felt pledged in Ranald's behalf. “It's a one-horse looking country, though,” he said to himself, “and no place for a man with any snap. Best thing would be to pull out, I guess, and take him along.” And it was in this mind that he received the Honorable Archibald Blair, M. P. P., for New Westminster, president of the British Columbia Canning Company, recently organized, and a director in half a dozen other business concerns.
“Colonel Thorp, this is Mr. Blair, of the British Columbia Canning Company,” said Coley, with a curious suggestion of Ranald in his manner.
“Glad to welcome a friend of Mr. Macdonald's,” said Mr. Blair, a little man of about thirty, with a shrewd eye and a kindly frank manner.
“Well, I guess I can say the same,” said Colonel Thorp, shaking hands. “I judge his friends are of the right sort.”
“You'll find plenty in this country glad to class themselves in that list,” laughed Mr. Blair; “I wouldn't undertake to guarantee them all, but those he lists that way, you can pretty well bank on. He's a young man for reading men.”
“Yes?” said the colonel, interrogatively; “he's very young.”
“Young, for that matter so are we all, especially on this side the water here. It's a young man's country.”