“What I don’t understand,” Horace Williams said to Mr Murchison, “was why you didn’t give him a blow on the whistle. You and Milburn and a few others might have got up quite a toot. You don’t get the secretary to a deputation for tying up the Empire home every day.”
“You did that for him in the Express,” said John Murchison, smiling as he pressed down, with an accustomed thumb, the tobacco into his pipe.
“Oh, we said nothing at all! Wait till he’s returned for South Fox,” Williams responded jocularly.
“Why not the Imperial Council—of the future—at Westminster while you’re about it?” remarked Lorne, flipping a pebble back upon the gravel path.
“That will keep, my son. But one of these days, you mark my words, Mr L. Murchison will travel to Elgin Station with flags on his engine and he’ll be very much surprised to find the band there, and a large number of his fellow-citizens, all able-bodied shouting men, and every factory whistle in Elgin let off at once, to say nothing of kids with tin ones. And if the Murchison Stove and Furnace Works siren stands out of that occasion I’ll break in and pull it myself.”
“It won’t stand out,” Stella assured him. “I’ll attend to it. Don’t you worry.”
“I suppose you had a lovely time, Mr Murchison?” said Mrs Williams, gently tilting to and fro in a rocking-chair, with her pretty feet in their American shoes well in evidence. It is a fact, or perhaps a parable, that should be interesting to political economists, the adaptability of Canadian feet to American shoes; but fortunately it is not our present business. Though I must add that the “rocker” was also American; and the hammock in which Stella reposed came from New York; and upon John Murchison’s knee, with the local journal, lay a pink evening paper published in Buffalo.
“Better than I can tell you, Mrs Williams, in all sorts of ways. But it’s good to be back, too. Very good!” Lorne threw up his head and drew in the pleasant evening air of midsummer with infinite relish while his eye travelled contentedly past the chestnuts on the lawn, down the vista of the quiet tree-bordered street. It lay empty in the solace of the evening, a blue hill crossed it in the distance, and gave it an unfettered look, the wind stirred in the maples. A pair of schoolgirls strolled up and down bareheaded; now and then a buggy passed.
“There’s room here,” he said.
“Find it kind of crowded up over there?” asked Mr Williams. “Worse than New York?”