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- 266 REMINISCENCES OF OLD VICTORIA
his name and age and give him a "bit" with which to stuff his youthful stomach with indigestible sweet-meats. Judge my surprise when, preceded by the noise of a heavy tread, a huge youth of about seventeen, bigger and taller than myself, and smoking a cigar, appeared at the opening, and in a deep, gruff voice that a sea captain or a militia commander would have envied, asked :
" Did you call, mamma ?"
" Yes, my dear child," she sweetly responded ; "I wish to introduce you to this gentleman."
The " child " removed his hat, and I noticed that his hair was cut close to the scalp. Having been duly introduced at my request he sat down in my chair while I took a seat on the edge of the editorial table, which was very rickety and would scarcely bear my weight at the present day.
The parent gazed at her son fondly for a moment and then proceeded :
" Bertrand's fortune was swallowed up in the quartz wreck ; but he is very sweet and very patient, and never complains. Poor lad ! It was hard upon him, but he forgives all?do you not, dear?"
"Yes," rumbled the "child " from the pit of his stomach; but the expression that flitted across his visage made me think that he would rather have said " No," had he dared.
"That being the case I will now explain the object of my visit. As I have said, we have lost everything?that is to say, our income is so greatly reduced that it is now a matter of not more than $1,000 a month. Upon that meagre sum my dear boy and I contrive to get along by practising the strictest economy consistent with our position in life. Naturally we wish to do
CHRISTMAS DINNER IN VICTORIA 267
better, and then go back to Russia and live with the nobility. De we not, Bertrand?"
" Yes," rumbled the "child" from his stomach again, as he lighted a fresh cigar.
" Well, now, Mr. H.," the lady went on, " I want an adviser. I ask Pierre Manciot at the. French Hotel, and he tells me to see' his partner, John Sere; and Mr. Sere tells me to go to the editor of the Colonist. I come here. The editor is ill. I go back to Mr. Sere and he says, see D. W. H.; he will set you all right. So I come to you to tell you what I want."
She paused for a moment to take a newspaper from her reticule and then continued :
" After my husband died and left the debts and this precious child (the "child" gazed abstractedly at the ceiling while he blew rings of smoke from his mouth) we made a grand discovery. Our foreman, working in the mine, strikes rich quartz, covers it up again, and tells no one but me. All the shareholders have gone?what you call `busted,' I believe? We get hold of many shares cheap, and now I come here to get the rest. An Englishman owns enough shares to give him control?I mean that out of two hundred thousand shares I have got ninety-five thousand, and the rest this Englishman holds. We have traced him through Oregon to this place, and we lose all sign of him here." (Up to this moment I had not been particularly interested in the narration.) She paused, and laying a neatly-gloved hand on my arm proceeded :
" You are a man of affairs."
I modestly intimated that I was nothing of the kind, only a reporter.
" Ah ! yes. You cannot deceive me. I see it in your eye, your face, your movements. You are a man of
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