Frenzied Fiction Part 27

"No, sir," said the conductor.

"The ignorance of these fellows," said the man in grey tweed, swinging his chair round again towards me. "We ought to have a by-law to compel them to read the by-laws. I must start an agitation for it at once."

Here he took out a little red notebook and wrote something in it, murmuring, "We need a new agitation anyway."

Presently he shut the book up with a snap. I noticed that there was a sort of peculiar alacrity in everything he did.

"You, sir," he said, "have, of course, read our munic.i.p.al by-laws?"

"Oh, yes," I answered. "Splendid, aren't they? They read like a romance."

"You are most flattering to our city," said the irascible gentleman with a bow. "Yet you, sir, I take it, are not from Toronto."

"No," I answered, as humbly as I could. "I'm from Montreal."

"Ah!" said the gentleman, as he sat back and took a thorough look at me.

"From Montreal? Are you drunk?"

"No," I replied. "I don't think so."

"But you are _suffering_ for a drink," said my new acquaintance eagerly.

"You need it, eh? You feel already a kind of craving, eh what?"

"No," I answered. "The fact is it's rather early in the morning--"

"Quite so," broke in the irascible gentleman, "but I understand that in Montreal all the saloons are open at seven, and even at that hour are crowded, sir, crowded."

I shook my head.

"I think that has been exaggerated," I said. "In fact, we always try to avoid crowding and jostling as far as possible. It is generally understood, as a matter of politeness, that the first place in the line is given to the clergy, the Board of Trade, and the heads of the universities."

"Is it conceivable!" said the gentleman in grey. "One moment, please, till I make a note. 'All clergy--I think you said _all_, did you not?--drunk at seven in the morning.' Deplorable! But here we are at the Union Station--commodious, is it not? Justly admired, in fact, all over the known world. Observe," he continued as we alighted from the train and made our way into the station, "the upstairs and the downstairs, connected by flights of stairs; quite unique and most convenient: if you don't meet your friends downstairs all you have to do is to look upstairs. If they are not there, you simply come down again. But stop, you are going to walk up the street? I'll go with you."

At the outer door of the station--just as I had remembered it--stood a group of hotel bus-men and porters.

But how changed!

They were like men blasted by a great sorrow. One, with his back turned, was leaning against a post, his head buried on his arm.

"Prince George Hotel," he groaned at intervals. "Prince George Hotel."

Another was bending over a little handrail, his head sunk, his arms almost trailing to the ground.

"_King Edward_," he sobbed, "_King Edward_."

A third, seated on a stool, looked feebly up, with tears visible in his eyes.

"Walker House," he moaned. "First-cla.s.s accommodation for--" then he broke down and cried.

"Take this handbag," I said to one of the men, "to the _Prince George_."

The man ceased his groaning for a moment and turned to me with something like pa.s.sion.

"Why do you come to _us_?" he protested. "Why not go to one of the others. Go to _him_," he added, as he stirred with his foot a miserable being who lay huddled on the ground and murmured at intervals, "_Queen's_! Queen's Hotel."

But my new friend, who stood at my elbow, came to my rescue.

"Take his bags," he said, "you've got to. You know the by-law. Take it or I'll call a policeman. You know _me_. My name's Narrowpath. I'm on the council."

The man touched his hat and took the bag with a murmured apology.

"Come along," said my companion, whom I now perceived to be a person of dignity and civic importance. "I'll walk up with you, and show you the city as we go."

We had hardly got well upon the street before I realized the enormous change that total prohibition had effected. Everywhere were the bright smiling faces of working people, laughing and singing at their tasks, and, early though it was, cracking jokes and asking one another riddles as they worked.

I noticed one man, evidently a city employe, in a rough white suit, busily cleaning the street with a broom and singing to himself: "How does the little busy bee improve the shining hour." Another employe, who was handling a little hose, was singing, "Little drops of water, little grains of sand, Tra, la, la, la, _la_ la, Prohibition's grand."

"Why do they sing?" I asked. "Are they crazy?"

"Sing?" said Mr Narrowpath. "They can't help it. They haven't had a drink of whisky for four months."

A coal cart went by with a driver, no longer grimy and smudged, but neatly dressed with a high white collar and a white silk tie.

My companion pointed at him as he pa.s.sed.

"Hasn't had a gla.s.s of beer for four months," he said.

"Notice the difference. That man's work is now a pleasure to him. He used to spend all his evenings sitting round in the back parlours of the saloons beside the stove. Now what do you think he does?"

"I have no idea."

"Loads up his cart with coal and goes for a drive--out in the country.

Ah, sir, you who live still under the curse of the whisky traffic little know what a pleasure work itself becomes when drink and all that goes with it is eliminated. Do you see that man, on the other side of the street, with the tool bag?"

"Yes," I said, "a plumber, is he not?"

"Exactly, a plumber. Used to drink heavily--couldn't keep a job more than a week. Now, you can't drag him from his work. Came to my house to fix a pipe under the kitchen sink--wouldn't quit at six o'clock. Got in under the sink and begged to be allowed to stay--said he hated to go home. We had to drag him out with a rope. But here we are at your hotel."

We entered.

But how changed the place seemed.

Our feet echoed on the flagstones of the deserted rotunda.

At the office desk sat a clerk, silent and melancholy, reading the Bible. He put a marker in the book and closed it, murmuring "Leviticus Two."

Then he turned to us.

"Can I have a room," I asked, "on the first floor?"