As a rule, he wore a black frock coat with vest, the lapels lined with a white frill. His collar was straight and high, while his tie was so big and broad that you could not see his shirt. It literally choked up the opening of his vest with its splendour. The creases of his trousers were always perfect. His boots were the old-fashioned elastic-sided ones. * * * * * Strangers coming into the gallery of the House of Commons for the first time always looked for Laurier. He knew it and rather enjoyed the limelight. It was his custom to enter the House just a moment before opening hour, and as he passed down the corridors of Parliament on the way from his office to the Chamber it was frequently through a lane of people, every one of them watching him intently. He would pass along straight as a guardsman, serene, dignified and quite unmoved. In the Chamber he was much given to visiting. From his seat in the front row, immediately opposite his Parliamentary opponent, Sir Robert Borden, he would move back among his more humble supporters and spend hours in earnest conversation with them. He knew his men individually, as none but Sir John Macdonald ever knew a following. Laurier had undoubtedly learned much from his former great rival. There were little mannerisms and tricks of speech and gestures that old-timers around Parliament declared he got only from Sir John. He loved to use that word “Grit,” especially in rural ridings, where he knew its effect on old-time voters. And he took a sort of impish delight in always characterizing his political opponents as “Tories,” rather than as Conservatives, or even as Liberal-Conservatives. He knew that in the minds of some of his hearers the use of the word “Tory” would convey an idea of class privilege and opposition to democratic ideas and movements. It was surprising, too, how he would adapt his utterances to his audience. It might be the same speech he had given elsewhere the day before, but he knew that his audience would differ, and little touches were added here and there that gave it individuality and touched responsive chords in his hearers. When stumping the country in an election campaign his stories and illustrations were always simple. The historical comparisons and the more subtle quotations were reserved for Parliament. When he spoke in Woodstock in the election of 1911, he told a story of an Irish friend of his, a conductor on the Montreal-Quebec train, for whom he brought a black thorn from Ireland in 1897. He had the conductor friend’s name put on it and when they met, presented him with the shillelah. “He was profuse in his thanks,” said Sir Wilfrid, and he wound up by saying, “May Heaven be your bed, but may you be kept long out of it.” “Now I hope that some day heaven may be my bed,” added the Liberal Chieftain, “but I don’t think I am ripe for it yet. I hope Heaven won’t be my bed until I have one more tussel with the Tories.”