324 Sport and Life. 



manners Mr. Z was accustomed to, for presently he looked up, 

 and, swinging his right leg over the arm of his roomy chair 

 condescended to ask the stranger whether he could do anything 

 for him. " Won't you finish your paper first, there is no hurry ; I 



have been trying to see Mr. X for the last four days to deliver to 



him an unimportant letter or two about some unimportant business." 

 " Well, 1 guess you'll have to wait another four days before you'll 



be able to do that," said Mr. Z with innate dignity. " Mr. 



X has gone fishing to Cowichan, and won't be back before 



Saturday, or possibly Monday, which is mail day." " Gone fishing 

 to Cowichan ! " I exclaimed ; but no, there was no use getting 

 angry, so with the deputy's gracious permission I entered into 

 further explanations, and some more revelations were sprung upon 

 me. I was told that, as the " Fourth " was also a public holiday 

 (indeed, in those years one saw quite as many Yankee flags flying on 

 Uncle Sam's national day as Union Jacks on the Canadian one), people 

 considered the intervening days a sort of thrown-in holidays, no 

 busy mail day interfering with that comfortable little arrangement. 

 Presently the deputy closed the interview by informing me that if 

 my business was very urgent I could take that afternoon's steamer 



to Cowichan. "You'll find Mr. S (the other Minister) there, 



too ; they are staying with the latter's brother ; he is the blacksmith 

 in Cowichan." 



I had read that some of the old kings and grand dukes in 

 Germany were such keen sportsmen that they made their ministers, 

 and even foreign ambassadors, seek them in their sylvan retreats 

 in the dense forest, so I could not help drawing the moral that 

 hunting and fishing were now, as ever, the most important part of 

 a ruler's vocation, for it kept the anointed ones, as well as the 

 brothers of village blacksmiths, at least out of mischief. 



There were some other funny things to be observed in Victoria, 

 the post-office being not the least remarkable. " Ways that are 

 dark and tricks that are vain " is a mild description. There was 

 then, and I believe there is still, only one post-office in the town, 

 which now boasts of some 25,000 inhabitants. " Take that and 



