Chapter 4

I can't lose this mail after having taken so long about my last letter. But it will scarcely be more than How d'you do? How are you? I'm all right! Well, that's better than nothing, anyhow. I have, as you see, again changed my location, whether advantageously or otherwise I cannot as yet say. But this Capital of Canada is a miserable little place. The railway station is very little better than a shed in a field, and the road from there to the town--oh, "golly!"--a train off the rails is nothing to it. I came up in the hotel 'bus, and though I tried all I knew to sit firm and not let daylight be seen betwixt me and my saddle, I was jumped about like a dancing-master, and I hammered those cushions till I thought of claiming a week's pay from the hotel for beating the dust out of them. However, I did'nt; so I am still here. There is one good thing I have done in coming here, I have reached the head and source of the immigration question. I can get an unprejudiced opinion as to the very best spots in the place--that is, settling spots--and also various items of information which all tend, more or less, to the endorsement of this moral: Let no professional men, of any sort, come out here. I used to think there must be lots of openings for engineers, doctors, etc., in the small towns that were almost daily springing up along the line, but that is not so. Of course there is now and then a chance, say for a doctor to start in some place where eighty or a hundred people have congregated together, and if he can live on his own pills till another couple of oughts are added to the figure, he may get a good practice. But then he may not, because somebody else may get it instead. The fact of the matter is, and I have high government officials for my authority, that, owing to the educational mania, which is every whit as rampant here as it is in England, this country produces annually a number of professional men, of every class, far in excess of the demand. The illiterate settler makes his money pretty easy, and then, being impressed with the "free country" rubbish that is talked here, he decides that his sons shall not be farm labourers, they shall be gentlemen. "Why the blazes shouldn't 'Bob' be just as good a doctor or lawyer as anyone else?" So to school and to college they go, and having been made gentlemen of, they lounge about the towns, filling the bars and the billiard-rooms, and smoking themselves green while waiting for a breeze. Why, in this wretched little place, of about 20 to 25,000 inhabitants, there are thirty lawyers and twenty-five doctors in the directory, and all these have one or more satelites. Well, this is all very dry.

The weather is getting colder every day, and the shop windows are getting full of snow-shoes, mocassins, etc. I hear very different stories about the winter. Some people say it is so cold that the rain freezes into icicles as it comes down from the clouds, and so forms pillars which you can climb up and skate about overhead. And others say it's so jolly mild in the coldest weather that you've only got to put a little snow in the fire and it will soon melt.

I must shut up now, as I've got an appointment to meet the Minister of the Interior and several other swagger gentlemen.

Best love to everybody. Remember me all round.

Your loving Son, J. SETON COCKBURN.

P.S.--I open this again to tell you that I am fixed here, for the present at anyrate. I have got a job in a patent solicitor's office, as draughtsman. Salary is scarcely fixed yet, but will probably be seven or eight dollars a-week to begin upon, increasing to about twelve. It may be permanent or it may not, but I have something else to fall back upon.

Address 202, Bank Street, Ottawa.

The job I have to fall back upon is with a blacksmith, at Eton Corner. I should at first get only board, but probably more afterwards.

Ottawa,

_October 6th_, '84.

My Dear "Frunck,"

I have no doubt you think me a blackguard, to put it mildly, for taking such a month of Sundays to answer your letter; Of course I thought to myself as soon as I had finished it: Dash it! here goes. I'll write him a "jaw." But "dash it" here didn't go. I wrote to mother instead, and when I had finished that one I was so tired of scribbling that I "smucked a cegar" and turned in. I was then staying for the night at the Sherbrooke Hotel, on my way to Montreal, after having stuck Henry in the mud, which is the polite way of saying that I left him rapidly taking root in the soil of the new country. I haven't heard from him since we parted, partly, I have no doubt, because I have been knocking about so much that all my letters have missed me. In fact, I haven't heard from a soul for more than a fortnight. However, I am stationary at last, for a time anyway. I have got a job as senior draughtsman in a patent solicitor's office (don't tell anybody, but my only junior is a boy with a face more astute in angles than in expression). It is a rum sort of work that I have to do--mostly making drawings from models in perspective; not too easy, especially as the drawings have to be finished off "up to Dick," or they are not accepted at the Patent Office. But there's not much in it after all. No designing, no calculations, and in a great many instances no real scale even. In fact, so long as the drawing is done quickly and immaculately got up, it does not matter a rap whether a man is as big as a monkey or not, so long as they are both good-looking. You see the main object is to make the principle of the invention clear at a glance in one view, that is why they generally are perspective. I have only been at it a day and a half, so I can't tell you much about either the boss or the work yet, but I think we shall get on very well together. Hartley is his name, and this much is tolerably certain concerning him, he is a rising man, his business is increasing, and, as I said before, I am his senior draughtsman, therefore should he "hum," I shall endeavour to hum too. Tell old Major that I can whistle as loud and as long as I like, and that I can smoke all day if I please. But I don't please; that's just the rummy part of it. Now in Hawk's shanty they don't like whistling, and for the life of me I couldn't keep quiet there. Also they object to the fumes of tobacco, therefore they missed many a half hour of my time, which was spent in sacrificing to the king of weeds. Here, in a free country, I can do as I please, and yet, for some reason or another, I don't do it. The office is on the fourth flat of the Victoria Chambers--good height up you see. My lamp is going out--must shut up for to-night.... Well,

I've just come down again from up a height, as they say in your part of the world. I finished my first drawing to-day, was highly commended, and gave it my junior to trace. My second job is a patent saw-sharpening affair for circular saws. They want half-a-dozen different plane views, and a perspective arrangement, to be worked up from a few rough tracings, a rougher specification, and a photograph with a man in it--the patentee, I believe--so if I flatter him in the matter of unlikeness he is bound to be well pleased. I don't know yet, though, if he has to go in or not. The Patent Office is bound to keep a record, in pictures or models, of the results of mens' brains, whether eccentric or otherwise, but not of the general appearance of their possessors. More's the pity, I think; for from what I have seen of the models in the Patent Office, they would furnish specimens for the phrenological study of mental imbecility for generations to come. I only had time just to run through the model rooms, but here is the idea of a patent which tickled me immensely. It was simply a lot of wooden geese fastened at the end of long sticks all over and around a boat. They were grouped together in most picturesque confusion, some standing on their heads and some on their tails, and some, _I believe_, supposed to be flying. The idea was that when real live geese saw this affair like a mad Noah's ark on the water, they would recognise their brethren and come flocking along to be shot by the other goose inside with the gun. Perhaps being geese they would do just that, but then what depravity on the part of the warlike one thus to take advantage of the eccentricities of his fellows. I have never seen the affair used. It does not seem to have made great progress in the good opinion of the public. Perhaps, after all, the bloodthirsty quacker, who offers to the irreverant eye this melancholy evidence of insanity, had a cynically low opinion of his kind, causing him to believe that geese were geese enough to be deceived by him, the greatest goose of the lot. I must shut up, or I shall do something flighty. I wish you'd come and punch my head, or do something of that sort. Here have I been working all day, and now I'm writing all night, or at least I've just written it. There's a fellow here feels like punching somebody, but you see he's all alone, and he knows how I might hurt himself. Besides, he's writing to my dear brother, so he does not want to stop me, or else you know he'd never get the letter. You understand, don't you? Of course you do. It's as clear as mud. I'm writing with somebody else's ink, that's all. Between you and me (there's plenty of room, old boy; chuck your elbows out, and sp--t where you please), that's why he writes such rubbish. I'm going to write now. You'll see the difference at once when I begin. The room I now occupy as I pen these lines, belongs to the ancient style of architecture known as the Five-dollar Boarding-house Rectangular (he can't afford to go on writing like that, it's too expensive). Excuse me, my dear sir, I must crave your permission to condense slightly the style of my caligraphy. Her Majesty's Postmaster has a prejudice against the carrying of letters which exceed one ton in weight. I was, I believe, describing the beauties of my apartment. To proceed at once to details, there is a stove-pipe that comes in at the wall and goes out at the ceiling, a peculiarity by no means uncommon in edifices of the before-mentioned class--the object of the design being the economical warming of the whole structure by means of one stove, generally of the severely-dilapidated style. There is also, on the opposite side of the room, an antique sofa, celebrated for having been too forcibly sat upon, probably by some athletic hero on his return from victory. However that may be, the sofa remains to this day tabooed to mortal forms, though the present owner has informed me that "It reely is goin' to be fixed up all noo like, when I gets a few more boarders." From the mixed dialect observable in the form of which intimation I gather that the original language of the aborigines is not altogether lost to their posterity. There are also various other specimens of that style of furniture, which is generally admitted to be contemporary with the peculiar type of architecture of which I write, but I am debarred by lack of space from giving them a full description, or mentioning the legends connected with each. The beautifully-carved cornices, of the sheep-skin and bees'-wax order, the elaborate mural--. Oh, gammon! Many happy returns of the twenty-sixth of last month to you, old boy. I quite forgot my own birthday, so it could hardly be expected that I should remember yours. People often do what they're not expected to, however, and I did remember your birthday--after it was all over that is to say. I remembered that yours was on the twenty-sixth by talking to somebody about something or other that was going to happen somewhere about that date, and then of course it came into my head that I had passed mine over without observing the feast. Pot said in a letter he wrote to me, that he hoped my birthday might be the day on which I should hear of some good job, or do something which should turn out to be a stroke of good fortune. Curiously enough, it was on the nineteenth that I learned that a good opening had occurred for Henry, and that if I liked to take a rather rough fanning job, I could get myself stuck likewise. That part of the offer I did not accept, and I think by what has since happened, that my refusal was judgematical. Moreover, the very next day I heard of a more congenial matter in the hammer-and-tongs department of my august profession. A village blacksmith, a horny-handed son of toil, generously offered to feed and lodge me for as long as I liked to stop, in return for my services in his forge. The offer was the more magnanimous in that he was not in any particular need of assistance, but was willing to stretch a point (a proceeding that would stump Professor Euclid, by the way,) considering that I was in particular need of a job. No doubt, like all Yankees, he had an eye on the dollars' question, and argued, with most praiseworthy perception, that being an engineer and one who by his own representation had seen a good deal of forge work, I might prove a very lucrative spec. But then he promised that if he found that through my agency the money came in faster than it did before, he would give me my fair share of the profits so accruing. So I says to him says I, "See here, stranger, if I don't get into a hole between now and this day fortnight, you'll see me again. So leave the door open, will you?" He promised to do just that; and, in fact, he said that I could come and start right away whenever I pleased. So if this present exalted position of mine should fail me--for, as I said before, it may only be a temporary affair--why, slick I shall go away down to my particular friend the village blacksmith. Well, I must wind up; it's getting late. If ever you should be goaded by an uneasy conscience into writing me another letter, just let me know what is going on "on the banks of the coaly Tyne." Who is anybody, and where is he, etc. How is Bill Hawes, and give him my love for himself and family. Remember me especially to M. Moorshead, Esq. Tell him he missed a treat when I went away without standing him a drink; it was the bitter(less)est! day of his life. Is Edison still at the redoubtable No. 14? Reach your toe out and kick him if he is, and tell him I don't love him. By-the-bye, how's the canoe getting on? Is it finished? Has anybody been drowned? If so, how many? And did I owe them anything? There's no chance of its being the other way on. If you see any of the old club fellows knocking about, tell them they can expect a lock of my hair on receipt of P.O.O. for one dollar. In fact say boo to every goose you meet.

Your loving Brother, J. SETON COCKBURN.

Present Address: 202, Bank Street, Ottawa, P.O., Canada.

_October 10th_, '84.

My Dearest Mother,

I have only two hours from now till when the mail closes, so I must make the best of my time. I have not called upon Mrs. Howel, because I could not get at them. It was not worth while making a pretty long journey just to deliver one introduction, and I believe someone told me they were not in Montreal. By-the-bye, talking of people whom I did not see, I must tell you that I also missed Cousin Maynard. He had gone away somewhere, and left no address that I could hear of, either at the offices of the British Association or elsewhere. I was very sorry not to have seen him, but it could not be helped. You say that Henry told you I was seedy. I think he must have been suffering under the same delusion as he was that day he came home from a yachting cruise, and said that "everybody had been awfully sea-sick," meaning that he himself had been the principal sufferer. I don't mean that he has been particularly seedy either, certainly nothing beyond an unmentionable ache. We were both a little bit churned up for a day or two, and I believe it was owing to ice-cream. In the hot weather it was most tempting, and they give you a great plateful for 10 cents., none of the rascally little thimblefulls you get in England for twice that amount. But you can make yourself perfectly easy, we are both so far as I know, perfectly well, not even a mentionable ache, and I tell you candidly, though I am afraid it is a dreadful confession, I have'nt felt wretched by any means since I left home. Poor old Daddy! I'm sorry he was bothered about such a trivial thing as a marriage settlement; perhaps it is that he wants twopence-halfpenny to square his accounts. Pump him, will you, and if it should be this that's preying on his mind, you may tell him he can draw on me for the amount, and I'll toss him double or quits when I come home. I suppose he's pretty nearly spliced by this time. Concerning the passage in my letter which seems to have puzzled you; it seems clear enough to me, naturally it would, but that don't count. To the best of my recollection I was writing from Aylmer Street, and I think I said as much in my letter, if so, here is the explanation of the obscurity. "I think with the _prospect_ of his (Henry's) being shortly settled _there_ (Crabtree's), you might write, etc., if we are not _here_ (the diggings) they can forward the letter." I can't see the muddiness "if we are not here," means in other words "if we should have gone away (of course it does), before your answer arrives," and "they can forward the letter," means naturally that the people we have left behind can send after us. If I had meant Crabtree to forward the letter, I must have said "if we are not _there_." Of course, if I did not tell you that I was writing from Aylmer Street, I was a great coon, and that would explain the need of explanation. Well, I suppose you know Henry's true and permanent address by this time, so his letters are all right. But what would have been the use of sending one to Crabtree, we should have been more likely to leave our address at our diggings any way, and there was only a _prospect_ of his going to C.'s. Should his letter have gone there, however, he will no doubt get it in the end, though it will probably be a very long end. We didn't leave our address with him because he said he would let his friend Kemp (who introduced us) know what decision he arrived at, and he (Kemp) would write to us; for all we knew the old chap himself could'nt write his own name. Poor old fossil! If you send him a note you'll make him scratch all his hair off, and he has'nt got much. I would'nt send any of my letters to Mrs. Hall if I were you, you don't know how she is off for thatch, and it will take a power of thinking for any old lady unacquainted with Algebra to find out an unknown quantity. You might address them now to the Post Office, Ottawa, P.O. If I should go elsewhere I will leave instructions at the P.O. to forward my letters.

This is a truly dreadful scrawl, but never mind, quantity wins the day, quality nowhere. You see I am taking the subjects of your letter and answering them as I go along. So far from having had to dip into my money for Henry, I left him with fifty odd clear dollars in his pocket; this came from his second £10. He had pretty near come to the end of the ten he had in his belt when he started, when he got the job. I had already come to the end of mine--extraordinary, was'nt it?--and now I have got at this present moment $459 75c.; quite a fortune, is'nt it? I'm sorry I have'nt time to write you a longer letter my dearest mamma, but those nasty wicked people at the Post Office said they would not stop that big ship for a day or two on any account. This is such a beast of a pen. I would put it in the envelope and send it to you if I did not think it would find its way out before it reached you, just to show you what an immoderate amount of patience I have got. I've tried to cross all these t's half-a-dozen times, and pretty vigorously too. It must be awful good paper to withstand the amount of friction necessary. Now I've pretty well filled up the sheet. That's all I've been trying to do lately as you can no doubt see.

With best love to all friends, relations, and acquaintances, believe me,

Ever your loving Son, J. SETON COCKBURN.

202, Bank Street, Ottawa,

_October 15th_, '84.

My Dearest Mother,