Lorne Murchison, to dismiss the matter, was well up to the standard of Elgin, though he wore his straw hat quite on the back of his head and buried both hands in his trousers pockets.

His eye was full of pleasant easy familiarity with the things he saw, and ready to see larger things; it had that beam of active inquiry, curious but never amazed that marks the man likely to expand his horizons.

Meanwhile he was on capital terms with his little world, which seemed to take pleasure in hailing him by his Christian name; even morose Jim Webster, who had failed three times in groceries, said "Morning, Lorne" with a look of toleration.

He moved alertly; the poise of his head was sanguine; the sun shone on him; the timidest soul came nearer to him.

He and Elmore Crow, who walked beside him, had gone through the lower forms of the Elgin Collegiate Institute together, that really "public" kind of school which has so much to do with reassorting the classes of a new country.