Having a keen sense of humor, once he built a spur-line from near the station at Winnipeg, to Silver Heights, a summer residence of Sir Donald Smith, afterwards Lord Strathcona. When that personage arrived one day shortly after, and wanted to leave the car at Winnipeg, he was asked to remain. When the special train ran over the new track for a while Sir Donald noticed familiar objects, and when he reached Silver Heights, he grasped his head and wondered if he had gone crazy. He couldn’t understand that where there had been no railway track before there was one now. A Well Informed Porter. Jimmy French was Sir William’s faithful porter on the private car “Saskatchewan,” and Jimmy was a character. One day, down at St. John, en route to Sydney, Cape Breton, a couple of newspaper reporters unceremoniously rushed into the car seeking an interview and met Jimmy. “Where’s Sir William, and where is he going?” “Don’ you peoples know that a privat’ cah’s a man’s house, and you wouldn’t go inta a genleman’s house without rappin’, now would ya?” indignantly demanded Jimmy. The reporters mollified him, and then Jimmy enlightened them: “Don’ know where Sir William is, but I do know he’s goin’ down fishin’ to Great Britain.” Another time when Hon. Edward Blake, who had been retained by the company in an important case in British Columbia, accompanied Sir William in his car to the Pacific coast, Jimmy, whose ordinary language was somewhat lurid, had been warned not to use any cuss words in Mr. Blake’s presence, as he was a very religious man, and abhorred profanity. All went well, until at a divisional point in the west, the car was being watered. By some accident, the water went the wrong way, and instead of filling the tanks, deluged Jimmy, who thereupon broke out in a violent torrent of abuse and consigned the culprit to the lowest depths of the sultry place, where, they say, there is eternal punishment. The air was blue. Being over-heard, he was taken to task for his pyrotechnical language, and ordered by Sir William to apologize to Mr. Blake. Jimmy was in a bad fix, and thought thoughts, but didn’t go near Mr. Blake. Finally he was commanded to apologize, and he went meekly to Mr. Blake and penitently began the apology. [Illustration: LORD STRATHCONA—LORD MOUNT STEPHEN—SIR WILLIAM VAN HORNE] “I’m sorry, Mistah Blake, that I swore and cussed as I did, an’ I’ve gotta ’pologize, but ye see, Mistah Blake, that blankety, blank son of a black, blank his blank eyes, soaked me good an’ hard wif’ his blankety blank ol’ water an’—” But he got no further, for Mr. Blake, convulsed with laughter, said it was all right. And Jimmy told me afterwards that it was a hell of an apology. Early Advertising.