thorn-bush back into the gap, then in all lands he reverts to the Tribal
Herald, who is also the tribal Outer Guard.

There are countries where a man is indecently pawed over by chattering
heralds who bob their foul torches in his face till he is singed and
smoked at once. In Canada the necessary 'Stand and deliver your
sentiments' goes through with the large decency that stamps all the
Dominion. A stranger's words are passed on to the tribe quite
accurately; no dirt is put into his mouth, and where the heralds judge
that it would be better not to translate certain remarks they
courteously explain why.

It was always delightful to meet the reporters, for they were men
interested in their land, with the keen, unselfish interest that one
finds in young house-surgeons or civilians. Thanks to the (Boer) war,
many of them had reached out to the ends of our earth, and spoke of the
sister nations as it did one good to hear. Consequently the
interviews--which are as dreary for the reporter as the reported--often
turned into pleasant and unpublished talks. One felt at every turn of
the quick sentences to be dealing with made and trained players of the
game--balanced men who believed in decencies not to be disregarded,
confidences not to be violated, and honour not to be mocked. (This may
explain what men and women have told me--that there is very little of
the brutal domestic terrorism of the Press in Canada, and not much
blackmailing.) They neither spat nor wriggled; they interpolated no
juicy anecdotes of murder or theft among their acquaintance; and not
once between either ocean did they or any other fellow-subjects
volunteer that their country was 'law-abiding.'

You know the First Sign-post on the Great Main Road? 'When a Woman
advertises that she is virtuous, a Man that he is a gentleman, a
Community that it is loyal, or a Country that it is law-abiding--go the
other way!'

Yet, while the men's talk was so good and new, their written word seemed
to be cast in conventional, not to say old-fashioned, moulds. A quarter
of a century ago a sub-editor, opening his mail, could identify the
Melbourne _Argus_, the Sydney _Morning Herald_, or the Cape _Times_ as
far as he could see them. Even unheaded clippings from them declared
their origin as a piece of hide betrays the beast that wore it. But he
noticed then that Canadian journals left neither spoor nor scent--might
have blown in from anywhere between thirty degrees of lat