ot recognize this, or maintain an easy
passivity to it, until at some election crises our hearts fail us for
fear because of the preponderance of the foreign vote in educational
and moral matters.

And the Englishman and I speak of subjects of grave import, and of how
it is not seemly that we trade too freely with foreign peoples
(especially with the States of the American Union), neither is it loyal
to our most Christian King, George V. "Wealth at the expense of
loyalty is not a thing to be desired," says the Englishman, "and
Colonials do well to preserve the integrity of the Empire," to which
dictum I make no reply, not being able to gainsay him. I could wish
though that he tell me how we are to avoid so doing.

This dear lad would go into literary work if we read anything in Canada
besides statistics, sporting news, and crop forecasts. In the
contemplation of our sordid practicability, he is lost in astonishment.
"No, madam, I shall not do it, and I shall tell you my reason," says
he. "If you write with a sense of life or colour along will come some
weighty, grim fellows whose business it is to write stock
quotations--leaden creatures, believe me--and they will distinctly
sniff and sneeze out the word 'impressionistic,' by which they mean
fanciful. Sons of bats! If once they tried to frame an impression in
black and white they might have some proper comprehension of the word.
Any uncouth man can state facts, but it is the telling what the facts
stand for that hurts. A coarse man cannot take impressions except from
a closed fist, which impression he would probably describe as a 'dint
in the pro-file.' Such an one hears no farther than his ears,
although, in not a few cases, this might be no inconsiderable distance."

"No, I will not become the local _litterateur_," continues the lad, "to
be received by the community with a mingling of pride and sarcasm. I
tell you what I will do: it is better to be a real-estate broker, in
that all conditions tend to what you Colonials call 'a dead sure
thing.' It is the only business in which a man reaps where he does not
sow. I will surely be a real-estate man. This I will be."

We are come to Edson now--the terminus of the passenger route--but I am
going to describe it in another chapter, for it would be ungrateful to
bulk it with other events because of the sense of adventure I enjoyed
from my visit thereto.

CHAPTER II

A FRONTIER POST.

The new world w