The Masques of Ottawa | Page 2

counties and electoral districts of Canada--many of them French--chatter about the great masquerade up at the Castle, the little-king show which at its best is worth more to Canada than the Senate. The homes of Ottawa are little shows whose players imitate the manners and the accents of the fine people in the Castle, the Restaurant and the Chateau.
"Nothing but a prinked-up panorama!" says the rugged Radical in a coonskin coat, member of a deputation with a railway ticket as long as his pocket. "Poor show! What we want down here is more plain farmers' wives----"
He pauses. This man's first cousin broke away from the farm a generation ago because farmers' wives were too plain, and farmers did so little reading, and the big thinkers and doers all seemed to live in town. As he talks, up dashes a sleigh, jangling its bells and dangling its robes, and from behind the bearskinned driver alights a company that makes his coonskin coat feel clumsy and uncomfortable. He glances up at the great pile of walls on the hill. The hill is alive with fine people. In one of the sleighs a lady bows and smiles--at him! He touches his cap and takes his pipe from his mouth.
"That lady?" he replies to his sleeping-car mate. "Oh, that is the wife of a Senator, used to live in our town. Clever little woman she is, too. They tell me she's writing a novel and that Lady Byng is taking her up. Lady Byng--oh, yes, she writes novels. Good idea. Likely her books won't be quite so rough as some of our Canadian novels are. I like style in a book, all that fine manners stuff; takes your mind off the humdrum of everyday life. Byng--say, that was a wise appointment if ever there was one. My way of thinking, Lord Byng has 'em all beaten since Dufferin. Kings' and queens' uncles and cousins and brothers don't suit this democratic nation like a man who got acquainted with this country before ever he set eyes on it, through the boys he commanded out yonder. Great man! Fit to be Governor-General of a great country, and I won't deny it. No snobbery. Seventh son of an earl, all his life a soldier and a worker. A real man, such as any of us could present to our constituents with pleasure and pride. Tell you what--listen!"
His sleeping-car mate feels a heavy clutch on his arm.
"Remember the old debate we used to have about 'The pen is mightier than the sword'? Well, say--when you get the pen and the sword united in one outfit--what about it? Oh, it's a great show, sure enough. I used to think government was a plain, plugshot business of trade statistics, card indexes and ledgers. But I've come to the conclusion that this old town has to make it a good bit of a social compromise and a show, or it can't be carried on, no matter who does it."

CONTENTS
THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA-- RT. HON. ARTHUR MEIGHEN
THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN PREMIER-- RT. HON. SIR ROBERT BORDEN
A POLITICAL SOLAR SYSTEM-- RT. HON. SIR WILFRID LAURIER
THE GRANDSON OF A PATRIOT-- HON. WILLIAM LYON MACKENZIE KING
NUMBER ONE HARD-- HON. T. A. CRERAR
THE PREMIER WHO MOWED FENCE CORNERS-- HON. E. C. DRURY
EZEKIEL AT A LEDGER-- RT. HON. SIR GEORGE FOSTER
A HALO OF BILLIONS-- RT. HON. SIR THOMAS WHITE
CALLED TO THE POLITICAL PULPIT-- HON. NEWTON WESLEY ROWELL
AN AUTOCRAT FOR DIVIDENDS-- BARON SHAUGHNESSY
THE PUBLIC SERVICE HOBBYIST-- SIR HERBERT AMES
THE SHADOW AND THE MAN-- HON. SIR SAM HUGHES
THE STEREOPTICON AND THE SLIDE-- LIEUT.-GENERAL SIR ARTHUR CURRIE
A COAT OF MANY COLOURS-- SIR JOHN WILLISON
WHATSOEVER THY HAND FINDETH-- SIR JOSEPH FLAVELLE, BART.
NO FATTED CALVES FOR PRODIGAL SONS-- HON. SIR HENRY DRAYTON
THE PERSONAL EQUATION IN RAILROADING-- EDWARD WENTWORTH BEATTY
A BOURGEOIS MASTER OF QUEBEC-- HON. SIR LOMER GOUIN
A POLITICAL MATTAWA OF THE WEST-- JOHN WESLEY DAFOE
HEADMASTER OF THE MANCHESTER SCHOOL-- MICHAEL CLARK, M.P.
THE SPHINX FROM SASKATCHEWAN-- HON. J. A. CALDER
A TRUE VOICE OF LABOUR-- TOM MOORE
THE MAN WITHOUT A PUBLIC-- SIR WILLIAM MACKENZIE
THE IMPERIAL BRAINSTORM-- BARON BEAVERBROOK
CONCLUSION

THE MASQUES OF OTTAWA
THE UNELECTED PREMIER OF CANADA
RT. HON. ARTHUR MEIGHEN
Once only have I encountered Rt. Hon. Arthur Meighen, Premier of Canada by divine right, not as yet by election. I was the 347th person with whom he shook hands and whom he tried to recognize that afternoon. His weary but peculiarly winning smile had scarcely flickered to rest for a moment in an hour. For the eleven seconds that it was my privilege to be individually sociable with him, he did his best to say what might suit the case. He seemed much like a worn-out precocious boy, of great wisdom and much experience, suddenly prodded into an eminence which as yet he scarcely understood.
I was introduced as--say, Mr. Smith.
"Oh?" he said, wearily. "Yes, I've read