“I generally tell people whom I meet casually,” continued Mr. Bang, “that I have navvied and mined throughout the West, especially if they suggest themselves to me as being a bit snobbish, and I often find myself treated as a tough character. I do this merely to be honest. I daresay this is a mistake, for people ascribe my candour to simplicity.”
“What do you do with the tenderfoot when he arrives in the West?” I asked Mr. Bang.
“We treat him well and give him a show. If he is loaded with nonsense we kindly knock it out of him.”
Was there ever a stranger character than this Mr. Bang? In spite of my dislike for him, I am becoming interested.
“The westerner’s quarrel with the easterner is not unique,” put in Uncle as his nephew ceased speaking. “It is the same with the Englishman who returns home from Australia or Rhodesia. Frontier communities are made up of wanderers; and its social life frames itself to suit the scallywag. Settled communities have no experience in such wanderers, and their prejudices are strong.”
Uncle made this explanation dispassionately, as if he simply wished to further my understanding. I suppose I am still a child in my knowledge of the world. But I’m cleverer than they seem to think. Men are self-satisfied creatures, sometimes.
After dinner we went into the city, walked into the crowded streets. Sleighbells were ringing, here, there, and everywhere. Sleighbells are almost the jolliest thing about Christmas; the automobile horns sounded out of place. There was a great deal of laughing and of merry greetings to be heard.
Mr. Bang is certainly prodigal with his money. He gave a poor boy a dollar and told him to buy a new shirt; and he gave a poor, old woman two dollars. He did not do it secretly, nor ostentatiously, but in an open-hearted, matter-of-course sort of way. I suppose it is the result of his western training.
But if Mr. Bang hates eastern society, I confess the more I see of its movement and brightness, the more I intend to get on. The way will open—I know that—and I am quite rid of the queer ideas that filled my mind last night. I can make use of Mr. Bang and Ethel Bassett, and possibly—Mrs. Mount, “that old battle-axe,” who is more like, shall I say, a Fairy Godmother. Possibly, we’ll see.
Christmas Day.