But Nora was not to be ruffled just now. Her resentment against Taylor, who was sitting watching her as if he read her thoughts--she often wondered how much of them he _did_ read--made anything Gertie said seem momentarily unimportant. "I don't suppose anyone would wash up if they could help it. It's not very amusing." "You always want to be amused?" "No, but I want to be happy." "Well," said Gertie sharply, "you've got a roof over your head and a comfortable bed to sleep in, three good meals a day and plenty to do. That's all anybody wants to make them happy, I guess." "Oh, Lord!" exclaimed Reggie from his corner. "Well," said Gertie, turning sharply on him, "if you don't like Canada, why did you come out?" "You don't suppose," said Hornby, rising slowly to his feet, "I'd have let them send me if I'd have known what I was in for, do you? Not much. Up at five in the morning and working about the place like a navvy till your back feels as if it 'ud break, and then back again in the afternoon. And the same thing day after day. What was the good of sending me to Harrow and Oxford if that's what I've got to do all my life?" There was a tragic dignity in his tone which for the moment held even Gertie silent. It was her husband who answered him, and Gertie's jealous ear detected a certain wistfulness in his voice. "You'll get used to it soon enough, Reg. It _is_ a bit hard at first, I'll admit. But when you get your foot in, you wouldn't change it for any other life." "This isn't a country for a man to go to sleep in and wait for something to turn up," said Gertie aggressively. "I wouldn't go back to England now, not for nothing," said Trotter, stung to an unusual burst of eloquence. "England! Eighteen bob a week, that's what I earned. And no prospects. Out of work five months in the year." "What did you do in England!" asked Nora curiously. "Bricklayer, Miss." "You needn't call her Miss," said Gertie heatedly. "You call me Gertie, don't you? Well, _her_ name's Nora." "What with strikes and bad times," went on Trotter unheeding, "you never knew where you was. And the foreman always bullying you. I don't know what all. I 'ad about enough of it, I can tell you. I've never been out of work since the day I landed. I've 'ad as much to eat as I wanted and I'm saving money. In this country everybody's as good as everybody else." "If not better," said Nora dryly. "In two years I shall be able to set up for myself. Why, there's old man Thompson, up at Pratt. _He_ started as a bricklayer, same as I. Come from Yorkshire, he did. He's got seven thousand dollars in the bank now." "Believe me, you fellows who come out now have a much softer thing of it than I did when I first came. In those days they wouldn't have an Englishman, they'd have a Galician rather. In Winnipeg, when they advertised in the paper for labor, you'd see often as not: 'No English need apply.'"