found it quite impossible to meet the King in the quiet sociable way
in which one met him in Orillia. The English, it seems, love to make
the kingship a subject of great pomp and official etiquette. In
Canada it is quite different. Perhaps we understand kings and princes
better than the English do. At any rate we treat them in a far more
human heart-to-heart fashion than is the English custom, and they
respond to it at once. I remember when King George--he was, as I say,
Duke of York then--came up to Orillia, Ontario, how we all met him in
a delegation on the platform. Bob Curran--Bob was Mayor of the town
that year--went up to him and shook hands with him and invited him to
come right on up to the Orillia House where he had a room reserved
for him. Charlie Janes and Mel Tudhope and the other boys who were on
the town Council gathered round the royal prince and shook hands and
told him that he simply must stay over. George Rapley, the bank
manager, said that if he wanted a cheque cashed or anything of that
sort to come right into the Royal Bank and he would do it for him.
The prince had two aides-de-camp with him and a secretary, but Bob
Curran said to bring them uptown too and it would be all right. We
had planned to have an oyster supper for the Prince at Jim Smith's
hotel and then take him either to the Y.M.C.A. Pool Room or else over
to the tea social in the basement of the Presbyterian Church.

Unluckily the prince couldn't stay. It turned out that he had to
get right back into his train and go on to Peterborough, Ontario,
where they were to have a brass band to meet him, which naturally
he didn't want to miss.

But the point is that it was a real welcome. And you could see that
the prince appreciated it. There was a warmth and a meaning to it
that the prince understood at once. It was a pity that he couldn't