I came to myself at the entrance to a magnificent and palatial hotel; too much so, by far, I fancied, for my scantily-filled purse. But I was past the minding stage, and I knew I could always make a change on the morrow, if so be it a change were necessary. And then I began to think,--what mattered it anyway? What were a few paltry sovereigns between one and poverty? Comforting thought,--a man could not have anything less than nothing. I registered, ordered a bath, a shave, a haircut, a jolly good supper and a bed; and, oh! how I enjoyed them all! Surely this was the most wonderful city in the world, for never did bath, or shave, or supper, or bed feel so delicious as these did. I swooned away at last from sheer pleasure. The recuperative powers of youth are marvellously quick. I was up and out to view the city almost as soon as the sun was touching the snow-tipped tops of the magnificent mountain peaks which were miles away yet seemed to stand sentinels at the end of the street down which I walked. I was up and out long ere the sun had gilded the waters of the broad inlet which separated Vancouver from its baby sister to the north of it. The prospect pleased me; there was freedom in the air, expanse, vastness, but,--it was still a city with a city's artifices and, consequently, not what I was seeking. I desired the natural life; not the roughness, the struggle, the matching of crafty wits, the throbbing blood and the straining sinews,--but the solitude, the quiet, the chance for thought and observation, the wilds, the woods and the sea. As I returned to breakfast, I wondered if I should find them,--and where. In the dining-room, during the course of my breakfast,--the first real breakfast I had partaken of in Canada,--my attention was diverted to a tall, well-groomed, muscular-looking man, who sat at a table nearby. He looked a considerable bit on the sunny side of fifty. He was clean shaven, his hair was black tinged with grey, and his eyes were keen and kindly. Every time I glanced in his direction, I found him looking over at me in an amused sort of way. I began to wonder if I were making some breach of Canadian etiquette of which I was ignorant. True, I had eaten my porridge and cream without sprinkling the dish with a surface of sugar as he had done; I had set aside the fried potatoes which had been served to me with my bacon and eggs;--but these, surely, were trivial things and of no interest to any one but myself. At last, he rose and walked out, sucking a wooden toothpick. With his departure, I forgot his existence. After I had breakfasted, I sought the lounge room in order to have a look at the morning paper and, if possible, determine what I was going to do for a living and how I was going to get what I wanted to do. I was buried in the advertisements, when a genial voice with a nasal intonation, at my elbow, unearthed me.