You may be sure
the Express was well ahead with it. "Honour to Our Young
Fellow Townsman. A Well-Merited Compliment," and Rawlins
was round promptly next morning to glean further
particulars. He found only Mrs Murchison, on a stepladder
tying up the clematis that climbed about the verandah,
and she told him a little about clematis and a good deal
about the inconvenience of having to abandon superintending
the spring cleaning in order to get Lorne ready to go to
the Old Country at such short notice, but nothing he
could put in the paper. Lorne, sought at the office, was
hardly more communicative. Mr Williams himself dropped
in there. He said the Express would now have a personal
interest in the object of the deputation, and proposed
to strike out a broad line, a broader line than ever.
"We've got into the way of taking it for granted," said
Mr Williams, "that the subsidy idea is a kind of mediaeval
idea. Raise a big enough shout and you get things taken
for granted in economics for a long while. Conditions
keep changing, right along, all the time, and presently
you've got to reconsider. There ain't any sort of ultimate
truth in the finest economic position, my son; not any
at all."
"We'll subsidize over here, right enough," said Lorne.
"That's the idea--that's the prevailing idea, just now.
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