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the Hudson’s Bay Company manager, staring at him. Arthur smiles and waves heartily. Russell is to Arthur as a mouse is to a lion.

Chapter Five
    Arthur suddenly feels done in. The long, nerve-wracking journey, first to New York for his important business meeting, then the train ride across Canada babysitting The Famous Writer and his brother, and finally the arduous Treaty Party canoe trip to Pelican Narrows, have taken their toll. He climbs up the hill to his house, lets himself in, pours a whiskey, and says hello to his old friend, Reginald the parrot, sitting in his gilded cage. He is ridiculously fond of this bird, a gift from a lover he had met in a Moose Jaw brothel. Arthur makes sure that Reginald has water and seed, and then stretches out on the sofa on the screened-in veranda.
    Oh how he loves this place. Given it’s a twenty-minute walk from his trading post – even taking the shortcut through the grave yard – its location is a bit of a nuisance. It’s situated directly north of the HBC store, and the Smiths, Florence in particular, have made no bones about it – they don’t like him there.
    But spread out below is that spectacular panorama. Nothing in the world is so beautiful, Arthur thinks, as Pelican Lake mirroring a glorious red/yellow sunset. He picks up a porcelain figurine sitting on the side table. It’s about ten inches high, dressed in a yellow clown suit with bright red buttons. It has a mauve ruff around its neck and wears a pointed red-brown hat. It’s stepping forward, its arm outstretched as though to shake hands. With its pointed chin, long, pickle-like nose, heavy black eyebrows, and skinny moustache it bears an uncanny resemblance to Arthur himself, and this always makes him laugh. The character Pulcinella, from the Commedia dell’Arte, made in Strafford-le-Bow during George II’s reign, it cost a fortune, but Arthur loves it. It’s his favourite of all the beautiful things he has painstakingly collected over the years.
    “I’ve come a long way from the haberdashery department of Debenham & Freebody,” he says to himself. A long way from the workman’s cottage in the old borough of Southwark, Central London, where he had grown up.
    His father had been respectable enough, a skilled cabinet maker, but there were six sons in the family, so, although Arthur was a bright and industrious student, upper school education was out of the question. He showed more talent for chatting people up than handling a lathe, so a position was found for him as a stock boy at Debenham & Freebody. He was scarecrow-thin and slope-shouldered with crafty blue eyes and a pasty face, but he spent his evenings in the library pouring through newspapers and periodicals, teaching himself the fashion trade. Within a year he had been promoted to junior salesman in the haberdashery department. He still remembers with pleasure the striped flannel coats with patch pockets and brass buttons, the brilliant white shirts with their tall, stiff-winged collars, the polka-dotted silk ascots. It didn’t take him long to evolve into a rakish smooth-talker who knew exactly how to please his customers.
    One afternoon, a certain Mr. George asked, “Wouldn’t you like to have tea?” “I’d be very pleased, answered the young clerk,” and thus began his trade with older, wealthy men. Arthur was as manly as the next chap, but if these pansies wanted to bugger him, well that was the price he paid for a taste of the good life.
    Mr. Leroy-Hutchins was his favourite. A dealer in smaller objets d’art , he’d take a piece out of his cabinet, and describe where it came from, how it was made. Arthur smiles now, thinking of one he particularly loved – a perfume bottle in a shape of a cat, the stopper a mouse in the animal’s mouth. He loved to rub the glassy, white and gold surface, so smooth and cool to his touch.
    “It’s Chelsea porcelain ,” explained Mr. Leroy-Hutchins, as he kissed Arthur on the neck. “Circa