“Interesting, you wouldn’t. But valuable—well, you see, you haven’t been in England—you haven’t seen them over there, crowds of ‘em, piling up the national character. Hesketh’s an average, and for an average he’s high. Oh, he’s a good sort—and he just SMELLS of England.”
“He seems all right in his politics,” said John Murchison, filling his pipe from the tobacco jar on the mantelpiece. “But I doubt whether you’ll find him much assistance the way he talks of. Folks over here know their own business—they’ve had to learn it. I doubt if they’ll take showing from Hesketh.”
“They might be a good deal worse advised.”
“That may be,” said Mr Murchison, and settled down in his armchair behind the Dominion.
“I agree with Father,” said Advena. “He won’t be any good, Lorne.”
“Advena prefers Scotch,” remarked Stella.
“I don’t know. He’s full of the subject,” said Lorne. “He can present it from the other side.”
“The side of the British exporter?” inquired his father, looking over the top of the Dominion with unexpected humour.
“No, sir. Though there are places where we might talk cheap overcoats and tablecloths and a few odds and ends like that. The side of the all-British loaf and the lot of people there are to eat it,” said Lorne. “That ought to make a friendly feeling. And if there’s anything in the sentiment of the scheme,” he added, “it shouldn’t do any harm to have a good specimen of the English people advocating it. Hesketh ought to be an object-lesson.”
“I wouldn’t put too much faith in the object-lesson,” said John Murchison.