glance at his companion. "And as we're
passing, you might just introduce me to your mother; see?"

"She won't expect it, Lorne."

"That's all right, my son. She won't refuse to meet a friend of yours."
He led the way as he spoke to the point of vantage occupied by Mrs Crow,
followed, with plain reluctance, by her son. She was a frail-looking
old woman, with a knitted shawl pinned tightly across her chest, and her
bonnet, in the course of commercial activity, pushed so far back as to
be almost falling off.

"You might smarten yourself with that change, Elmore," she addressed
him, ignoring his companion. "There's folks coming back for it.
Two-dollar bill, wa'n't it? Fifty cents--seventy-five--dollar'n a half.
That's a Yankee dime, an' you kin march straight back with it. They
don't pass but for nine cents, as you're old enough to know. Keep
twenty-five cents for your dinner--you'll get most for the money at the
Barker House--an' bring me back another quarter. Better go an' get your
victuals now--it's gone twelve--while they're hot."

Elmore took his instructions without visible demur; and then, as
Lorne had not seen fit to detach himself, performed the ceremony
of introduction. As he performed it he drew one foot back and bowed
himself, which seemed obscurely to facilitate it. The suspicion faded
out of Mrs Crow's tired old sharp eyes under the formula, and she said
she was pleased to make our friend's acquaintance.

"Mr Murchison's changed some since the old days at the Collegiate,"
Elmore explained, "but he ain't any different under his coat. He's
practisin' the law."

"Lawyers," Mrs Crow observed, "are folks I like to keep away from."

"Quite right, too," responded Lorne, unabashed. "And so you've got my
friend here back on the farm, Mrs Crow?"

"Well, yes, he's back on the farm, an' when he's wore out his Winnipeg
clothes and his big ideas, we're lookin' to make him some use." Mrs
Crow's intention, though barbed, was humorous, and her son grinned
broadly.

"There's more money in the law," he remarked "once you get a start.
Here's Mr Murchison goin' to run the Ormiston case; his old man's down
sick, an' I guess it depends on Lorne now whether Ormiston gets off or
goes to penitentiary."

Mrs Crow's face tied itself up into criticism as she looked our young
man up and down. "Depends upon you, does it?" she commented. "Well, all
I've got to say is it's a mighty young dependence. Coming on next
week, ain't it?