Ambition, definitely
shining goals, adorn the perspectives of young men in
new countries less often than is commonly supposed. Lorne
meant to be a good lawyer, squarely proposed to himself
that the country should hold no better; and as to more
selective usefulness, he hoped to do a little stumping
for the right side when Frank Jennings ran for the Ontario
House in the fall. It wouldn't be his first electioneering:
from the day he became chairman of the Young Liberals
the party had an eye on him, and when occasion arose,
winter or summer, by bobsleigh or buggy, weatherbeaten
local bosses would convey him to country schoolhouses
for miles about to keep a district sound on railway
policy, or education, or tariff reform. He came home
smiling with the triumphs of these occasions, and offered
them, with the slow, good-humoured, capable drawl that
inspired such confidence in him, to his family at breakfast,
who said "Great!" or "Good for you, Lorne!" John Murchison
oftenest said nothing, but would glance significantly at
his wife, frowning and pursing his lips when she, who
had most spirit of them all, would exclaim, "You'll be
Premier yet, Lorne!" It was no part of the Murchison
policy to draw against future balances: they might believe
everything, they would express nothing; and I doubt
whether Lorne himself had any map of the country he meant
to travel over in that vague future, already defining in
local approbation, and law business coming freely in with
a special eye on the junior partner.
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