“Exactly, and you know the stories they tell about our Government House set. One is that a visitor one day found a number of young ladies in the drawing-room playing a game with one of the aides. The young gallant would sit on a chair and a damsel would sit on his knee, another on her knee, and so on with the others until the line of damsels on the young aide’s knee would stretch across the room. Then he would stand up and all of them would fall amid shrieks of laughter.”
Mr. Fraser told this with such satisfaction that he angered me; I was still more angered when Uncle remarked:—
“Sounds as if it were an incident culled from memoirs of Charles the Second.”
“Do you know whether the story is true or not,” I asked.
“No! I told it as current gossip to be taken for what it is worth,” replied Mr. Fraser.
“Quite likely it’s true: it’s not much worse than the ‘What-a-liar-you-are’ story,” said Mr. Bang.
I was so annoyed that I would not give Mr. Bang an opportunity to exercise his bitterness, so I held my tongue and did not ask the perhaps expected question. Mumsie was not so wise, and gave him the opening.
“This is of a maiden from the prairies, who went to dinner at Government House. An aide was commissioned to take her in to dinner and she asked him whether she should wear her gloves at the table. The aide replied, ‘Yes,’ but when the young lady found she had been deceived, she immediately tore off her gloves, remarking, as she did so, ‘What a liar you are.’ This story has become an Ottawa classic.”
“How could such a girl get an invitation to Government House?” I demanded, “surely———”
“She had de beeg pull wid Laurier,” replied Uncle.