I made up my mind to address him, when to my disgust he got into one of the barges, which moved off slowly, transporting him, as I supposed, to his northern home.
The next morning the bell of my front door attracted my attention by ringing three or four times. Evidently my landlady was out. I sauntered to the door and found my habitant of the velveteen coat and duty blue shirt!
Gracious heaven! I was overcome! By what occult power had he been driven here to deliver himself into my hands? Before I could speak, he said:
“Av ye plaze, sorr, will yez be having any carrpets to bate? I'm taking orders against the sphring claning, sorr.”
“Oh! are you?” said I. I began to feel very sorry for myself, very sorry, indeed, at this supreme instant. “Do you live near here?” I further inquired.
“Shure and I do, sorr. Jist beyant yez. I pass yez every day in the week. Me number's 415”—He was about handing me a greasy bit of paper, when I slammed the door in his face and retired to my own room to meditate on the strange accent and peculiar calling of this descendant of the “fine old French settler.”
My next choice, however, proved a fortunate one. I got into a street-car one evening late in the month of March. It was the winter street-car, a great dark caravan, with a long narrow bench down either side and a mass of hay all along the middle, with a melancholy lamp at the conductor's end. Although fairly light outside, it was quite dark inside the caravan, so the conductor set about lighting the lamp. This is the way he did it. Opening the door he put his head in, looked all around, shut the door and stopped his horses. Then he opened the door again and put his head in again, keeping the door open this time that we might inhale the fresh March night air. I say we, because when I grew accustomed to the dark, I saw there was another occupant of the car, a man seated on the opposite seat a little way down. The conductor felt under the seat for something which I suppose was the can which, taken presently by him to the corner grocery before which we had stopped, came back replenished with coal oil. After he had filled the lamp, he lit in succession three matches, persistently holding them up so that they all went out one after the other. He felt in his pockets but he had no more. Then he asked me. I had none. Then he asked the other man. The other man laughed and replied in French. I did not understand what he said but saw him supply the conductor with a couple of matches. When the lamp was finally lighted I looked more closely at him. He was a working man from his attire: colored shirt, coat of a curious bronze colour much affected by the Canadian labourer, old fur cap with ears, and moccasins. At his feet stood a small tin pail with a cover. His face was pale and singularly well-cut. His hair was black and very smooth and shiny; a very slight moustache gave character to an otherwise effeminate countenance and his eyes were blue, very light blue indeed and mild in their expression. We smiled involuntarily as the conductor departed. The man was the first to speak:
“De conductor not smoke, surely,” he said, showing me his pipe in one hand. “I always have the matches.”
“So do I, as a general thing,”. I rejoined. “One never knows when a match may be wanted in this country.” I spoke rather surlily, for I had been getting dreadfully chilled while the conductor was opening and shutting the door. The man bent forward eagerly, though without a trace of rudeness in his manner.
“You do not live here, eh?”