I was about to take one, but he interrupted.
“One minute, sir,” he said.
Then he took up a desk telephone that stood beside him and I heard him calling up Montreal. “Hullo, Montreal! Is that Montreal? Well, say, I’ve just received an offer here for two whisky and sodas at sixty cents, shall I close with it? All right, gentlemen, Montreal has effected the sale. There you are.”
“Dreadful, isn’t it?” said Mr. Narrowpath. “The sunken, depraved condition of your City of Montreal; actually selling whisky. Deplorable!” and with that he buried his face in the bubbles of the whisky and soda.
“Mr. Narrowpath,” I said, “would you mind telling me something? I fear I am a little confused, after what I have seen here, as to what your new legislation has been. You have not then, I understand, prohibited the making of whisky?”
“Oh, no, we see no harm in that.”
“Nor the sale of it?”
“Certainly not,” said Mr. Narrowpath, “not if sold properly.”
“Nor the drinking of it?”
“Oh, no, that least of all. We attach no harm whatever, under our law, to the mere drinking of whisky.”
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