Hesketh was coming over to prove
whatever advantage there was in seeing for yourself. That
he was coming with the right bias Lorne might infer, he
said, from the fact that he had waited a fortnight to
get his passage by the only big line to New York that
stood out for our mercantile supremacy against American
combination.
"He needn't bother to bring any bias," Lorne remarked
when he had read this, "but he'll have to pay a lot of
extra luggage on the one he takes back with him."
He felt a little irritation at being offered the testimony
of the Cunard ticket. Back on his native soil, its
independence ran again like sap in him: nobody wanted a
present of good will; the matter stood on its merits.
He was glad, nevertheless, that Hesketh was coming,
gratified that it would now be his turn to show prospects,
and turn figures into facts, and make plain the imperial
profit from the further side. Hesketh was such an
intelligent fellow, there would be the keenest sort of
pleasure in demonstrating things, big things, to him,
little things, too, ways of living, differences of habit.
Already in the happy exercise of his hospitable instinct
he saw how Hesketh would get on with his mother, with
Stella, with Dr Drummond. He saw Hesketh interested,
domiciled, remaining--the ranch life this side of the
Rockies, Lorne thought, would tempt him, or something
new and sound in Winnipeg.
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