o be at least improving in him. I get
to paying him the same respect that he pays himself, and imbues his
very clothes with, till everything he has on appears to look like him
and respect itself accordingly. I have often wondered what his hat,
his honored hat, for instance, would do, if I should throw it out of
the front window. It would make an earthquake, I believe.

He is politely curious about us; and from time to time, in a
shrinking, disgusted way, he asks some leading question about
Eriecreek, which he doesn't seem able to form any idea of, as much
as I explain it. He clings to his original notion, that it is in the
heart of the Oil Regions, of which he has seen pictures in the
illustrated papers; and when I assert myself against his opinions, he
treats me very gingerly, as if I were an explosive sprite, or an
inflammable naiad from a torpedoed well, and it wouldn't be quite
safe to oppose me, or I would disappear with a flash and a bang.

When Dick isn't able to go with me on Fanny's account, Mr. Arbuton
takes his place in the expeditionary corps; and we have visited a
good many points of interest together, and now and then he talks very
entertainingly about his travels. But I don't think they have made
him very cosmopolitan. It seems as if he went about with a little
imaginary standard, and was chiefly interested in things, to see
whether they fitted it or not. Trifling matters annoy him; and when
he finds sublimity mixed up with absurdity, it almost makes him
angry. One of the oddest and oldest-looking buildings in Quebec is a
little one-story house on St. Louis Street, to which poor General
Montgomery was taken after he was shot; and it is a pastry-cook's
now, and the tarts and cakes in the window vexed Mr. Arbuton so
much--not that he seemed to care for Montgomery--that I didn't dare
to laugh.

I live very little in the nineteenth century at present, and do not
care much for people who do. Still I have a few grains of affection
left for Uncle Jack, which I want you to give him.

I suppose it will take about six stamps to pay this letter. I forgot
to say that Dick goes to be barbered every day at the "Montcalm
Shaving and Shampooing Saloon," so called because they say Montcalm
held his last council of war there. It is a queer little steep-roofed
house, with a flowe