So it would seem.  It was a most obliging agent; and it took us half an hour to convince him that the train would reach Pictou half a day too late for the steamer, that no other boat would leave Pictou for Cape Breton that week, and that even if we could reach the Bras d’Or, we should have no means of crossing it, except by swimming.  The perplexed agent thereupon referred us to Mr. Brown, a shipper on the wharf, who knew all about Cape Breton, and could tell us exactly how to get there.  It is needless to say that a weight was taken off our minds.  We pinned our faith to Brown, and sought him in his warehouse.  Brown was a prompt business man, and a traveler, and would know every route and every conveyance from Nova Scotia to Cape Breton.

Mr. Brown was not in.  He never is in.  His store is a rusty warehouse, low and musty, piled full of boxes of soap and candles and dried fish, with a little glass cubby in one corner, where a thin clerk sits at a high desk, like a spider in his web.  Perhaps he is a spider, for the cubby is swarming with flies, whose hum is the only noise of traffic; the glass of the window-sash has not been washed since it was put in apparently.  The clerk is not writing, and has evidently no other use for his steel pen than spearing flies.  Brown is out, says this young votary of commerce, and will not be in till half past five.  We remark upon the fact that nobody ever is “in” these dingy warehouses, wonder when the business is done, and go out into the street to wait for Brown.

In front of the store is a dray, its horse fast-asleep, and waiting for the revival of commerce.  The travelers note that the dray is of a peculiar construction, the body being dropped down from the axles so as nearly to touch the ground,—­a great convenience in loading and unloading; they propose to introduce it into their native land.  The dray is probably waiting for the tide to come in.  In the deep slip lie a dozen helpless vessels, coasting schooners mostly, tipped on their beam ends in the mud, or propped up by side-pieces as if they were built for land as well as for water.  At the end of the wharf is a long English steamboat unloading railroad iron, which will return to the Clyde full of Nova Scotia coal.  We sit down on the dock, where the fresh sea-breeze comes up the harbor, watch the lazily swinging crane on the vessel, and meditate upon the greatness of England and the peacefulness of the drowsy after noon.  One’s feeling of rest is never complete—­unless he can see somebody else at work, —­but the labor must be without haste, as it is in the Provinces.

While waiting for Brown, we had leisure to explore the shops of King’s Street, and to climb up to the grand triumphal arch which stands on top of the hill and guards the entrance to King’s Square.