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was in the arms of a tender dollymop. French church bells sounded different: ding dang donc. The two hanging and ringing in Notre-Dame down at Place d’Armes were named after Victoria and Albert. Dong.
    Outside was grey again, threatening rain. I put myself to rights and whistled downstairs, tossing my key to a new pimp at the desk. Hung-over wet-haired American businessmen booked out after weekend benders. Bought the ’paper off a boy outside and determined to eat at Windsor Station Grill, checking the scheduled departures just in case. The station was near my old digs. Beyond pulling up a pew there wasn’t much doing of a Sunday morning.
    My landlady would herself be kneeling with the Paddies at St. Patrick’s right about now. I could chance ducking back into the rooming house for my remaining effects. I decided to risk it and so hiked over to Stanley and a file of nondescript row houses. I climbed the steps of the third from the end and tried the latch. It gave. I slipped in. The stand-up clock in the foyer ticked but its hands never moved, a distillation of the state of affairs at Miss Milligan’s. As there was no one stirring I took the stairs two at a time to my room. Someone had been in it, the bitch rummaging after I’d failed to show two nights running. I filled my Gladstone with books and linen, grabbed my overcoat and gloves, and was back outside in no time flat.
    I took my bag to the station and ate ham and eggs at the grill. The morning Gazette had nothing on Friday night’s fracas in the woods. This only confirmed my fears. To distract myself I thumbed through the classified notices looking for a cheap room that didn’t require references. Seeking quiet Christian gentleman, call UPtown 283, one week includes board and bedding. Sighing, I lit a cigaret. If there existed any toil more tedious than searching out lodgings I didn’t know it. How many times had I moved in the last year, ahead of the duns? Verily, it was a science unto itself, choosing the choice moment to slip cable. And so here I was back to the round of ’phone booths, wasted nickels, shoe leather burned, lies told to suspicious landlords. Still, it might be worse. At least I wasn’t looking for work.
    The best prospect of rooms to let was in lower Westmount, or perhaps I could go native on the east side amongst the Frogs. There I’d stick out, a square-headed peg amongst the peasantry. No, I wanted to remain near the train stations and the river. It was far too easy to get trapped on this island in the St. Lawrence.
    The concourse at Windsor was crowded and noisy. I noticed no police presence save a sole bobby pacing along with his hands behind his back, nodding pleasantly at unattended women. On the board I considered prospective destinations, all uninviting: Ottawa, Kingston, Niagara Falls. I should head over to Bonaventure Station to locomotive south. Winter was coming. The Florida land boom had busted and I could tend the greens of a golf course rotting away into mangrove swamps and live off alligator meat, oranges, and malaria. Sail away to Havana and die. Too much to ask for on a mere hundred dollars. No, ninety-seven now. How much would be enough? Have to see.
    I walked over to the waiting room. Inside, tramps warmed their feet at the stove, smoking sweeps from the floor. It was overhot and brutally close, so I turned around and checked my bag for the price of a dime. Exiting the station I nodded at the bronze Lord Mount Stephen, a statue everyone mistook for King George. It was the beard. This was George Stephen, father of the railroad west. He’d started his rise at a haberdasher’s back in Edinburgh, picking a pin up off the floor and tucking it behind his lapel for use later, impressing the bosses with his perfect thrift. From there to the Bank of Montreal and the CPR and now he was dead, his mansion converted into a private club for those who couldn’t cut the mustard with the