t will
come back to the country four times over in two years. Freights from
Boston alone--"

"It's the patriotic, imperial argument you'll have to press, I doubt,"
said John Murchison. "They're not business people over there--the men in
office are not. How should they be? The system draws them from the
wrong class. They're gentlemen--noblemen, maybe--first, and they've no
practical education. There's only one way of getting it, and that's to
make your own living. How many of them have ever made tuppence? There's
where the Americans beat them so badly--they've got the sixth sense,
the business sense. No; you'll not find them responding greatly to what
there is in it for trade--they'd like to well enough, but they just
won't see it; and, by George! what a fine suspicion they'll have of ye!
As to freights from Boston," he continued, as they all laughed, "I'm
of opinion you'd better not mention them. What! steal the trade of a
friendly power! Tut, tut!"

It was a long speech for John Murchison, but they were all excited to a
pitch beyond the usual. Henry Cruickshank had brought with him an
event of extraordinary importance. It seemed to sit there with him,
significant and propitious, in the middle of the sofa; they all looked
at it in the pauses. Dr Drummond, lost in an armchair, alternately
contemplated it and remembered to assert himself part of it. As head of
a deputation from the United Chambers of Commerce of Canada shortly
to wait on the British Government to press for the encouragement of
improved communications within the Empire, Cruickshank had been asked
to select a secretary. The appointment, in view of the desirability,
for political reasons, of giving the widest publicity to the hopes
and motives of the deputation, was an important one. The action of the
Canadian Government, in extending conditional promises of support, had
to be justified to the Canadian taxpayer; and that shy and weary person
whose shoulders uphold the greatness of Britain, had also to receive
such conciliation and reassurance as it was possible to administer to
him, by way of nerving the administrative arm over there to an act of
enterprise. Mr Cruickshank had had two or three young fellows, mostly
newspaper men, in his mind's eye; but when Lorne came into his literal
range of vision, the others had promptly been retired in our friend's
favour. Young Mr Murchison, he had concluded, was the man they wanted;
and if his office could spare him