the Conservative picnic the week before that, and had decided not to
go on this trip. In fact, he had not the least intention of going.
He narrated afterwards how the night before someone had stopped him
on the corner of Nippewa and Tecumseh Streets (he indicated the very
spot) and asked: "Are you going to take in the excursion to-morrow?"
and he had said, just as simply as he was talking when narrating it:
"No." And ten minutes after that, at the corner of Dalhousie and
Brock Streets (he offered to lead a party of verification to the
precise place) somebody else had stopped him and asked: "Well, are
you going on the steamer trip to-morrow?" Again he had answered:
"No," apparently almost in the same tone as before.

He said afterwards that when he heard the rumour of the accident it
seemed like the finger of Providence, and fell on his knees in
thankfulness.

There was the similar case of Morison (I mean the one in Glover's
hardware store that married one of the Thompsons). He said
afterwards that he had read so much in the papers about accidents
lately,--mining accidents, and aeroplanes and gasoline,--that he had
grown nervous. The night before his wife had asked him at supper:
"Are you going on the excursion?" He had answered: "No, I don't think
I feel like it," and had added: "Perhaps your mother might like to
go." And the next evening just at dusk, when the news ran through the
town, he said the first thought that flashed through his head was:
"Mrs. Thompson's on that boat."

He told this right as I say it--without the least doubt or confusion.
He never for a moment imagined she was on the Lusitania or the
Olympic or any other boat. He knew she was on this one. He said you