I had provided a hot supper and a cup of
coffee after their long walk, and they did ample justice to my
care.
Tom was in unusually high spirits, and appeared wholly bent upon
his Canadian expedition.
"Mr. C - - must have been very eloquent, Mr. Wilson," said I,
"to engage your attention for so many hours."
"Perhaps he was," returned Tom, after a pause of some minutes,
during which he seemed to be groping for words in the salt-cellar,
having deliberately turned out its contents upon the tablecloth.
"We were hungry after our long walk, and he gave us an excellent
dinner."
"But that had nothing to do with the substance of his lecture."
"It was the substance, after all," said Moodie, laughing; "and his
audience seemed to think so, by the attention they paid to it
during the discussion. But, come, Wilson, give my wife some account
of the intellectual part of the entertainment."
"What! I - I - I - I give an account of the lecture? Why, my dear
fellow, I never listened to one word of it!"
"I thought you went to Y - - on purpose to obtain information on the
subject of emigration to Canada?"
"Well, and so I did; but when the fellow pulled out his pamphlet,
and said that it contained the substance of his lecture, and would
only cost a shilling, I thought that it was better to secure the
substance than endeavour to catch the shadow - so I bought the book,
and spared myself the pain of listening to the oratory of the
writer.
