THE FREEMASON.
Ross de Bleury, the hospitable passenger, was a character. A man of immense physical strength and abounding spirits, soundly and stoutly built, of medium height, brown hair, full eyes and large nostrils, and strong merry lips, always devising some ingenious adventure.
One of his schemes, a quarter joke, three-quarters half-serious, was to band together all persons in the Dominion bearing the Ross name into one Canadian clan, he to be chief! His own surname had first of all been simply Bleury, but energetic genealogical researches having discovered to him that the founder of his line in France was a Scotch adventurer, he made bold to resurrect the original name, and add to it what was already a "Charles Réné Marie-Auguste-Raoul-St. Cyr-de Bleury."
Jest, quip and lively saying shortened his route to the doorway of the Circuit Court, and he insisted on Chrysler's passing to his quarters upstairs. The court-room was stocked with dusty benches and tables, on and about which a small but noisy company were postured. One reckless fellow swinging an ale-mug was singing:—
"Tant qu'on le pourra, larirette,
On se damnera, larirà!"
Two girls stood together near the door laughing brazen giggles.
They were the Jalberts, daughters of the innkeeper, who himself with two young politicians from Montreal were impressing on a habitant: "If you don't vote for Libergent, you can't go to heaven;" Jalbert being an adherent of the Blues in the hope of "running" Dormillière, if they succeeded, for his license had been taken away by the new movement. The bailiff, a wolfish-looking creature, who was always to be had for drink, also sat there trailing his vast loose moustache over a table. When Grandmoulin entered, a little crowd, like the tail of a comet, followed him into the room. As he passed through he said no word, but drew his cloak about him and moved forward sphinx-like to the bar of the court, where he sat down and commenced to converse with Libergent.
Chrysler mounted the stairs with his entertainer and came upon an entirely different scene. De Bleury's spacious attic was appropriated to the rough and ready convenience of himself alone, and there was something quizzical about its expanses of brown dimnesses and darknesses, the cobwebby light that struggled in through the one high dormer window, the closet-like partition in the middle with a ticket-selling orifice, and the three or four rough chairs, which, with table, newspaper, and a basket of bottles, formed the furniture of this apartment. What work was done here, and how any one could choose such a spot to do work in were questions asked you mysteriously by every object about. As soon as he had waved Chrysler to one of the chairs and sank back upon another into a shadow, he stretched out his hand and pulled the basket of bottles towards him.
"Now, sir, the question of fortune to every good man as he enters the world: 'What will you have.' I don't believe in fate: I believe in fortune: good things for everybody; let him choose. It's the man who won't accept good mouthfuls who is miserable. My Lord, what will you have?"
"I never take anything, thank you!"