"

When Roderick stepped on board the night train for Montreal he was
surprised and pleased to find Doctor Archie Blair bustling into the
opposite compartment. That delightful person, with a suit-case, a pile
of medical journals, a copy of Burns, and a new book of poems, had left
Algonquin the day before, and was now setting out on a tremendous
journey all the way to Halifax, to attend a great medical congress. He
welcomed his young fellow-townsman hilariously, pulled him into his
seat, jammed him into a corner, and scowling fiercely, with his fists
brandished in the young man's face and his eyes flashing, he spent an
hour demonstrating to Roderick that he had just discovered a young
Canadian singer of the spirit if not the power of his great Scottish
bard. The other occupants of the sleeping-car watched the violent big
man with the terrible eye, nervously expecting him every moment to
spring upon his young victim and throttle him. But to those who were
within earshot, the sternest thing he said was,

"_Then gently scan thy brother man,
Still gentler sister woman,
Though they may gang a keenin' wrang,
To step aside is human._"

The charm of the doctor's conversation, drove away much of Roderick's
homesickness and despondency, but it could not make him forget the pain
in his arm, which was hourly growing more insistent.

"And so you're leaving Algonquin for good," said Archie Blair at last,
when the black porter sent them to the smoker while he made up their
berths. "Well, there's a great future ahead of you in that firm. Not
many young fellows have such a chance as that. I wish Ed could have
gone away before you left, though, to Jericho, or Sodom and Gomorrah,
or wherever it is he and J. P. Thornton are heading for."

Archie Blair, as every one in Algonquin knew, lived as near to the
rules of life set forth in the Bible as any man in the town. But he
delighted in being known as a wicked and irreligious person, and always
made a fine pretence at being at sea when speaking of anything
Scriptural.

"Yes, sir, it's rather hard on old Ed; and there's J. P. too. He's
been waiting for Ed ever since the Holy Land was discovered, as
faithfully as Ruth waited for Jacob or whoever it was. I can't
remember when those two chaps weren't planning to take that trip, and
it looks as if they'd get to the New Jerusalem first. Cracky, now, I
believe you were the one that stopped their first trip and here yo