"Go round to the window; clear out!" In a very
flustered state he was hustled out of the room. When he came to the
window and made known his destination, he was refused tickets,
because his train did not start for two hours yet!
This mercurial old gentleman only appears in these records because he
was the only person we saw in this Province who was in a hurry to do
anything, or to go anywhere.
We cannot leave Halifax without remarking that it is a city of great
private virtue, and that its banks are sound. The appearance of its
paper-money is not, however, inviting. We of the United States lead
the world in beautiful paper-money; and when I exchanged my crisp,
handsome greenbacks for the dirty, flimsy, ill-executed notes of the
Dominion, at a dead loss of value, I could not be reconciled to the
transaction. I sarcastically called the stuff I received
"Confederate money;" but probably no one was wounded by the severity;
for perhaps no one knew what a resemblance in badness there is
between the "Confederate" notes of our civil war and the notes of the
Dominion; and, besides, the Confederacy was too popular in the
Provinces for the name to be a reproach to them. I wish I had
thought of something more insulting to say.
By noon on Friday we came to New Glasgow, having passed through a
country where wealth is to be won by hard digging if it is won at
all; through Truro, at the head of the Cobequid Bay, a place
exhibiting more thrift than any we have seen.
