Alfred Hesketh may
pass in an English crowd, but over here he's just an ignorant young
man, and you'd better not have him talking with his mouth at any of your
meetings. Tell him to go and play with Walter Winter."

"I heard he was asking at Volunteer Headquarters the other night,"
remarked Alec, "how long it would be before a man like himself, if he
threw in his lot with the country, could expect to get nominated for a
provincial seat."

"What did they tell him?" asked Mr Murchison, when they had finished
their laugh.

"I heard they said it would depend a good deal on the size of the lot."

"And a little on the size of the man," remarked Advena.

"He said he would be willing to take a seat in a Legislature and work
up," Alec went on. "Ontario for choice, because he thought the people of
this Province more advanced."

"There's a representative committee being formed to give the inhabitants
of the poor-house a turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Day," said Advena. "He
might begin with that."

"I dare say he would if anybody told him. He's just dying to be taken
into the public service," Alec said. "He's in dead earnest about it. He
thinks this country's a great place because it gives a man the chance of
a public career."

"Why is it," asked Advena "that when people have no capacity for private
usefulness they should be so anxious to serve the public?"

"Oh, come," said Lorne, "Hesketh has an income of his own. Why should
he sweat for his living? We needn't pride ourselves on being so taken up
with getting ours. A man like that is in a position to do some good, and
I hope Hesketh will get a chance if he stays over here. We'll soon
see how he speaks. He's going to follow Farquharson at Jordanville on
Thursday week."

"I wonder at Farquharson," said his father.

By this time the candidature of Mr Lorne Murchison was well in the
public eye. The Express announced it in a burst of beaming headlines,
with a biographical sketch and a "cut" of its young fellow-townsman.
Horace Williams, whose hand was plain in every line apologized for the
brevity of the biography--quality rather than quantity, he said; it
was all good, and time would make it better. This did not prevent the
Mercury observing the next evening that the Liberal organ had omitted to
state the age at which the new candidate was weaned. The Toronto papers
commented according to their party bias, but so far as the candidate
was concerned there was lack of the m