country, which she
continues to adorn!

{170}

Many delightful stories are told of Macdonald's ally, Lord Strathcona.
I have room for only two. A seedy-looking person named M'Donald once
called at the high commissioner's office in London. When asked the
nature of his business, he replied that he was in straitened
circumstances, and that when Lord Strathcona, as young Donald Smith,
had left Forres in Scotland for America, he had been driven to the port
whence he sailed by his present visitor's father. When the secretary
had duly informed Lord Strathcona of this, word was given to admit
M'Donald. Presently the bell rang, and the secretary appeared. 'Make
out a cheque for L5 in favour of Mr M'Donald,' said Lord Strathcona.
This was done, and M'Donald went on his way rejoicing. In a month or
so he turned up again; the same thing happened, and again he departed
with a five-pound cheque. This went on for several months; but
M'Donald came once too often. On the occasion of his last visit Lord
Strathcona did not happen to be in a complaisant mood. When M'Donald
was announced he said to the secretary: 'Tell him I'll not see him.
And as for Mr M'Donald's father having driven me from Forres when I
went to America, {171} it is not true, sir! _I walked, sir!_'--the
last three words with tremendous emphasis.

During one of Donald Smith's election contests in Manitoba he felt some
uneasiness as to the probable course of a knot of half-breeds in his
constituency, but was assured by his election agent that these people
were being 'looked after,' and that he need not have any apprehension
in regard to them. This agent belonged to a class of westerners noted
for the vigour rather than for the correctness of their language.
Smith himself, as is well known, was always most proper in this
respect. Now, it so happened that in the last hours of the campaign
the half-breeds who were the objects of his solicitude were beguiled by
the enemy, and that they voted against Smith, who lost the election.
He felt this defeat very keenly, and so did his agent, who had to bear
the additional mortification of having unintentionally misled his
principal. When the results of the polling were announced, the agent
relieved his feelings by denouncing the delinquent half-breeds in true
Hudson's Bay style, and at every opprobrious and profane epithet Smith
was heard to murmur with sympathetic approval, 'Are they not, Mr ----?
are they not? are