Wesblock, the autobiography of an automaton

In a little mean street, which ends at a steep hill running down to the river through the Quebec suburbs of Montreal, stood about fifty years ago a tiny old-fashioned church bui...

I arrived in the city of Montreal long before the time of telephones, electric street cars or automobiles. It was a dark morning in the month of January of the year One—I call i...

Both my grandmothers were very religious, one more ostentatiously than the other. When a young child I distinguished them by calling one the grandmother who said prayers, and th...

When I left the Canon’s school, my father declared that every boy ought to go to a public school. So to public school I went, where I made but little progress. Of course I was b...

Before I had the fever described in the earlier pages, while still a mere baby, I was sent to a ladies’ school among little girls. There was only one other boy in the school bes...

My life was now a double struggle; a struggle for health and a struggle for knowledge. I was always miserable and very often ill. The joy of being alive was a thing I never knew...

My first impression of Muriel was a disappointment. She was a striking, unusual type, most attractive in her way; but at first she failed to realise the mental picture I had dra...

Father had become the owner, through one of his numerous business deals, of what would be considered to-day a one-horse saw mill. It was situated about ninety miles from Montrea...

My brilliant scheme, born of want of foresight and knowledge of the world, was to go to Boston, where I had some friends, and start life humbly as a music teacher. Muriel was qu...

We at once went to my home to break the news of our marriage in person to my parents. Father and mother were somewhat appalled at the serious turn things had taken. Mother wept,...

A few months after our marriage Mason was withdrawn from the mill and placed elsewhere; an event which increased my importance, my opinion of myself, and my salary. We were now...

In the midst of the disorganisation caused by the death of the Doctor, I took the Western fever, which was prevalent at the time. Every one saw the promised land in the West. I...

It may seem strange that a man of my character should keep books of account. But the habit of keeping a financial memoranda had been formed when I was very young; in my first po...

Now comes one of the most unsavoury of all my experiences during the days that kept me struggling in the bog of poverty. I was informed one day by letter that the London Fur Dre...

I would not describe London if I could. It has been done too often already, well and ill; and, truth to tell, I was still very young, and for the greater part of the time spent...

My trip abroad had a very widening influence upon me, and I saw many things in a different light from that in which they had appeared to me before my visit to London. Muriel and...

When I came into the Service, one got in on a Minister’s “say so.” That was all that was necessary. If your Minister intended you to get in, you got in quickly, without heart-br...

For a few days after my introduction to the Service, I felt like a new boy in school. I was not welcome, it was clear, and Mr. Kingdom seemed to consider me rather an addition t...

A little while after we had moved and were settled, and I had seen enough of the Civil Service to make me thoughtful and doubtful as to the wisdom of my move, a little lady came...

When I left Montreal for Ottawa and the Civil Service, I was forced to leave a few unpaid bills behind me. I owed no serious amount of money, but some of my creditors immediatel...

Minister Two passed on, and Minister “Three” reigned in his stead. He had been acting Minister for nearly a year before the death of Two. Three was a successful business man, al...

Time passed, and I had nearly forgotten Clay and his promises, when one day a messenger came to me to inform me that my presence was desired in the Minister’s office. Although t...