The writer had even broken into verse to describe the emotions of the occasion. Despairing of prose he wrote:
Get out the old silk bonnet,
Iron a new shine on it.
Just pretend your long-tailed coat does not seem queer,
For we'll be all proper
As a crossing "copper"
When the Prince of Wales is here.
The Ladies' Page also caught the infection. It crossed its page with a wail:
"GIRLS! OH, GIRLS! SILVER SLIPPERS CANNOT BE HAD!"
and it went on for columns to tell how silver slippers were the only kind the Prince would look at. He had chosen all partners at all balls in all towns by the simple method of looking for silver slippers. The case of those without silver slippers was hopeless. The maidens of Winnipeg well knew this. There had been a silver slipper battue through all the stores, and all had gone—it was, so one felt from the article, a crisis for all those who had been slow.
A rival paper somewhat calmed the anxious citizens by stating that the Silk Lid and the Striped Pants were not necessities, and that the Prince himself did not favour formal dress—a fact, for indeed, he preferred himself the informality of a grey lounge suit always, when not wearing uniform, and did not even trouble to change for dinner unless attending a function. The paper also hinted that he had eyes for other things in partners besides silver slippers.
These papers gave us an indication that not only would "Winnipeg be polished to the heels of its shoes" at the coming of the Prince, but to continue the metaphor, it would be enthusiastic to well above its hat-band. And it was.
II
Certainly Winnipeg's welcome did not stop at the huge mass of heels—high as well as low—that carried it out to look at the Prince on his arrival. It mounted well up to the heart and to the head as he left the wide-open space in front of the C.P.R. station, and, with a brave escort of red-tuniced "Mounties," swung into the old pioneer trail—only it is called Main Street now—toward the Town Hall.
The exceedingly broad street was lined with immense crowds, that, on the whole, kept their ranks like a London rather than a Canadian throng for at least two hundred yards.