two buxom daughters, who were evidently enjoying their
first taste of city life. The little old man, who was not unlike a
petrified Frenchman of the last century, had risen before daylight,
roused up his daughters, and had them down on the sidewalk by four
o'clock, waiting for hack, or horse-car, or something to take them
to the station. That he might be a man of some importance at home was
evident, but he had lost his head in the bustle of this great town,
and was at the mercy of all advisers, none of whom could understand
his mongrel language. As we came out to take the horse-car, he saw his
helpless daughters driven off in one hack, while he was raving among his
meal-bags on the sidewalk. Afterwards we saw him at the station, flying
about in the greatest excitement, asking everybody about the train; and
at last he found his way into the private office of the ticket-seller.
"Get out of here!" roared that official. The old man persisted that
he wanted a ticket. "Go round to the window; clear out!" In a very
flustered state he was hustled out of the room. When he came to the
window and made known his destination, he was refused tickets, because
his train did not start for two hours yet!

This mercurial old gentleman only appears in these records because he
was the only person we saw in this Province who was in a hurry to do
anything, or to go anywhere.

We cannot leave Halifax without remarking that it is a city of great
private virtue, and that its banks are sound. The appearance of its
paper-money is not, however, inviting. We of the United States lead the
world in beautiful paper-money; and when I exchanged my crisp, handsome
greenbacks for the dirty, flimsy, ill-executed notes of the Dominion,
at a dead loss of value, I could not be reconciled to the transaction.
I sarcastically called the stuff I received "Confederate money;" but
probably no one was wounded by the severity; for perhaps no one knew
what a resemblance in badness there is between the "Confederate" notes
of our civil war and the notes of the Dominion; and, besides, the
Confederacy was too popular in the Provinces for the name to be a
reproach to them. I wish I had thought of something more insulting to
say.

By noon on Friday we came to New Glasgow, having passed through a
country where wealth is to be won by hard digging if it is won at all;
through Truro, at the head of the Cobequid Bay, a place exhibiting more
thrift than any we have seen. A ple