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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.05/20/01*END* +[Portions of this header are copyright (C) 2001 by Michael S. Hart +and may be reprinted only when these Etexts are free of all fees.] +[Project Gutenberg is a TradeMark and may not be used in any sales +of Project Gutenberg Etexts or other materials be they hardware or +software or any other related product without express permission.] + + + + + +This etext was produced by Gardner Buchanan <gbuchana@home.com> with +help from the distributed proofers at http://charlz.dynip.com/gutenberg + + + + + +Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town + +by Stephen Leacock, 1869-1944 + + + + + Preface + +I The Hostelry of Mr. Smith +II The Speculations of Jefferson Thorpe +III The Marine Excursion of the Knights of Pythias +IV The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone +V The Whirlwind Campaign in Mariposa +VI The Beacon on the Hill +VII The Extraordinary Entanglement of Mr. Pupkin +VIII The Fore-ordained Attachment of Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin +IX The Mariposa Bank Mystery +X The Great Election in Missinaba County +XI The Candidacy of Mr. Smith +XII L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa + + + +Preface + +I know no way in which a writer may more fittingly introduce his work +to the public than by giving a brief account of who and what he is. +By this means some of the blame for what he has done is very properly +shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life. + +I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am +not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at +the time, but should think it extremely likely. My parents migrated +to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them. My father took up a +farm near Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was during the hard times of +Canadian farming, and my father was just able by great diligence to +pay the hired men and, in years of plenty, to raise enough grain to +have seed for the next year's crop without buying any. By this +process my brothers and I were inevitably driven off the land, and +have become professors, business men, and engineers, instead of being +able to grow up as farm labourers. Yet I saw enough of farming to +speak exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising +and the deep sleep, both of body and intellect, that is induced by +honest manual toil. + +I was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, of which I was head +boy in 1887. From there I went to the University of Toronto, where I +graduated in 1891. At the University I spent my entire time in the +acquisition of languages, living, dead, and half-dead, and knew +nothing of the outside world. In this diligent pursuit of words I +spent about sixteen hours of each day. Very soon after graduation I +had forgotten the languages, and found myself intellectually +bankrupt. In other words I was what is called a distinguished +graduate, and, as such, I took to school teaching as the only trade I +could find that need neither experience nor intellect. I spent my +time from 1891 to 1899 on the staff of Upper Canada College, an +experience which has left me with a profound sympathy for the many +gifted and brilliant men who are compelled to spend their lives in +the most dreary, the most thankless, and the worst paid profession in +the world. I have noted that of my pupils, those who seemed the +laziest and the least enamoured of books are now rising to eminence +at the bar, in business, and in public life; the really promising +boys who took all the prizes are now able with difficulty to earn the +wages of a clerk in a summer hotel or a deck hand on a canal boat. + +In 1899 I gave up school teaching in disgust, borrowing enough money +to live upon for a few months, and went to the University of Chicago +to study economics and political science. I was soon appointed to a +Fellowship in political economy, and by means of this and some +temporary employment by McGill University, I survived until I took +the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in 1903. The meaning of this +degree is that the recipient of instruction is examined for the last +time in his life, and is pronounced completely full. After this, no +new ideas can be imparted to him. + +From this time, and since my marriage, which had occurred at this +period, I have belonged to the staff of McGill University, first as +lecturer in Political Science, and later as head of the department of +Economics and Political Science. As this position is one of the +prizes of my profession, I am able to regard myself as singularly +fortunate. The emolument is so high as to place me distinctly above +the policemen, postmen, street-car conductors, and other salaried +officials of the neighbourhood, while I am able to mix with the +poorer of the business men of the city on terms of something like +equality. In point of leisure, I enjoy more in the four corners of a +single year than a business man knows in his whole life. I thus have +what the business man can never enjoy, an ability to think, and, what +is still better, to stop thinking altogether for months at a time. + +I have written a number of things in connection with my college +life--a book on Political Science, and many essays, magazine +articles, and so on. I belong to the Political Science Association of +America, to the Royal Colonial Institute, and to the Church of +England. These things, surely, are a proof of respectability. I have +had some small connection with politics and public life. A few years +ago I went all round the British Empire delivering addresses on +Imperial organization. When I state that these lectures were followed +almost immediately by the Union of South Africa, the Banana Riots in +Trinidad, and the Turco-Italian war, I think the reader can form some +idea of their importance. In Canada I belong to the Conservative +party, but as yet I have failed entirely in Canadian politics, never +having received a contract to build a bridge, or make a wharf, nor to +construct even the smallest section of the Transcontinental Railway. +This, however, is a form of national ingratitude to which one becomes +accustomed in this Dominion. + +Apart from my college work, I have written two books, one called +"Literary Lapses" and the other "Nonsense Novels." Each of these is +published by John Lane (London and New York), and either of them can +be obtained, absurd though it sounds, for the mere sum of three +shillings and sixpence. Any reader of this preface, for example, +ridiculous though it appears, could walk into a bookstore and buy +both of these books for seven shillings. Yet these works are of so +humorous a character that for many years it was found impossible to +print them. The compositors fell back from their task suffocated with +laughter and gasping for air. Nothing but the intervention of the +linotype machine--or rather, of the kind of men who operate it--made +it possible to print these books. Even now people have to be very +careful in circulating them, and the books should never be put into +the hands of persons not in robust health. + +Many of my friends are under the impression that I write these +humorous nothings in idle moments when the wearied brain is unable to +perform the serious labours of the economist. My own experience is +exactly the other way. The writing of solid, instructive stuff +fortified by facts and figures is easy enough. There is no trouble in +writing a scientific treatise on the folk-lore of Central China, or a +statistical enquiry into the declining population of Prince Edward +Island. But to write something out of one's own mind, worth reading +for its own sake, is an arduous contrivance only to be achieved in +fortunate moments, few and far between. Personally, I would sooner +have written "Alice in Wonderland" than the whole Encyclopaedia +Britannica. + +In regard to the present work I must disclaim at once all intentions +of trying to do anything so ridiculously easy as writing about a real +place and real people. Mariposa is not a real town. On the contrary, +it is about seventy or eighty of them. You may find them all the way +from Lake Superior to the sea, with the same square streets and the +same maple trees and the same churches and hotels, and everywhere the +sunshine of the land of hope. + +Similarly, the Reverend Mr. Drone is not one person but about eight +or ten. To make him I clapped the gaiters of one ecclesiastic round +the legs of another, added the sermons of a third and the character +of a fourth, and so let him start on his way in the book to pick up +such individual attributes as he might find for himself. Mullins and +Bagshaw and Judge Pepperleigh and the rest are, it is true, personal +friends of mine. But I have known them in such a variety of forms, +with such alternations of tall and short, dark and fair, that, +individually, I should have much ado to know them. Mr. Pupkin is +found whenever a Canadian bank opens a branch in a county town and +needs a teller. As for Mr. Smith, with his two hundred and eighty +pounds, his hoarse voice, his loud check suit, his diamonds, the +roughness of his address and the goodness of his heart,--all of this +is known by everybody to be a necessary and universal adjunct of the +hotel business. + +The inspiration of the book,--a land of hope and sunshine where +little towns spread their square streets and their trim maple trees +beside placid lakes almost within echo of the primeval forest,--is +large enough. If it fails in its portrayal of the scenes and the +country that it depicts the fault lies rather with an art that is +deficient than in an affection that is wanting. + +Stephen Leacock. McGill University, June, 1912. + + + +ONE + +The Hostelry of Mr. Smith + +I don't know whether you know Mariposa. If not, it is of no +consequence, for if you know Canada at all, you are probably well +acquainted with a dozen towns just like it. + +There it lies in the sunlight, sloping up from the little lake that +spreads out at the foot of the hillside on which the town is built. +There is a wharf beside the lake, and lying alongside of it a steamer +that is tied to the wharf with two ropes of about the same size as +they use on the Lusitania. The steamer goes nowhere in particular, +for the lake is landlocked and there is no navigation for the +Mariposa Belle except to "run trips" on the first of July and the +Queen's Birthday, and to take excursions of the Knights of Pythias +and the Sons of Temperance to and from the Local Option Townships. + +In point of geography the lake is called Lake Wissanotti and the +river running out of it the Ossawippi, just as the main street of +Mariposa is called Missinaba Street and the county Missinaba County. +But these names do not really matter. Nobody uses them. People simply +speak of the "lake" and the "river" and the "main street," much in +the same way as they always call the Continental Hotel, "Pete +Robinson's" and the Pharmaceutical Hall, "Eliot's Drug Store." But I +suppose this is just the same in every one else's town as in mine, so +I need lay no stress on it. + +The town, I say, has one broad street that runs up from the lake, +commonly called the Main Street. There is no doubt about its width. +When Mariposa was laid out there was none of that shortsightedness +which is seen in the cramped dimensions of Wall Street and +Piccadilly. Missinaba Street is so wide that if you were to roll Jeff +Thorpe's barber shop over on its face it wouldn't reach half way +across. Up and down the Main Street are telegraph poles of cedar of +colossal thickness, standing at a variety of angles and carrying +rather more wires than are commonly seen at a transatlantic cable +station. + +On the Main Street itself are a number of buildings of extraordinary +importance,--Smith's Hotel and the Continental and the Mariposa +House, and the two banks (the Commercial and the Exchange), to say +nothing of McCarthy's Block (erected in 1878), and Glover's Hardware +Store with the Oddfellows' Hall above it. Then on the "cross" street +that intersects Missinaba Street at the main corner there is the Post +Office and the Fire Hall and the Young Men's Christian Association +and the office of the Mariposa Newspacket,--in fact, to the eye of +discernment a perfect jostle of public institutions comparable only +to Threadneedle Street or Lower Broadway. On all the side streets +there are maple trees and broad sidewalks, trim gardens with upright +calla lilies, houses with verandahs, which are here and there being +replaced by residences with piazzas. + +To the careless eye the scene on the Main Street of a summer +afternoon is one of deep and unbroken peace. The empty street sleeps +in the sunshine. There is a horse and buggy tied to the hitching post +in front of Glover's hardware store. There is, usually and commonly, +the burly figure of Mr. Smith, proprietor of Smith's Hotel, standing +in his chequered waistcoat on the steps of his hostelry, and perhaps, +further up the street, Lawyer Macartney going for his afternoon mail, +or the Rev. Mr. Drone, the Rural Dean of the Church of England +Church, going home to get his fishing rod after a mothers' auxiliary +meeting. + +But this quiet is mere appearance. In reality, and to those who know +it, the place is a perfect hive of activity. Why, at Netley's +butcher shop (established in 1882) there are no less than four men +working on the sausage machines in the basement; at the Newspacket +office there are as many more job-printing; there is a long distance +telephone with four distracting girls on high stools wearing steel +caps and talking incessantly; in the offices in McCarthy's block are +dentists and lawyers with their coats off, ready to work at any +moment; and from the big planing factory down beside the lake where +the railroad siding is, you may hear all through the hours of the +summer afternoon the long-drawn music of the running saw. + +Busy--well, I should think so! Ask any of its inhabitants if Mariposa +isn't a busy, hustling, thriving town. Ask Mullins, the manager of +the Exchange Bank, who comes hustling over to his office from the +Mariposa House every day at 10.30 and has scarcely time all morning +to go out and take a drink with the manager of the Commercial; or +ask--well, for the matter of that, ask any of them if they ever knew +a more rushing go-a-head town than Mariposa. + +Of course if you come to the place fresh from New York, you are +deceived. Your standard of vision is all astray, You do think the +place is quiet. You do imagine that Mr. Smith is asleep merely +because he closes his eyes as he stands. But live in Mariposa for six +months or a year and then you will begin to understand it better; the +buildings get higher and higher; the Mariposa House grows more and +more luxurious; McCarthy's block towers to the sky; the 'buses roar +and hum to the station; the trains shriek; the traffic multiplies; +the people move faster and faster; a dense crowd swirls to and fro in +the post-office and the five and ten cent store--and amusements! +well, now! lacrosse, baseball, excursions, dances, the Fireman's Ball +every winter and the Catholic picnic every summer; and music--the +town band in the park every Wednesday evening, and the Oddfellows' +brass band on the street every other Friday; the Mariposa Quartette, +the Salvation Army--why, after a few months' residence you begin to +realize that the place is a mere mad round of gaiety. + +In point of population, if one must come down to figures, the +Canadian census puts the numbers every time at something round five +thousand. But it is very generally understood in Mariposa that the +census is largely the outcome of malicious jealousy. It is usual that +after the census the editor of the Mariposa Newspacket makes a +careful reestimate (based on the data of relative non-payment of +subscriptions), and brings the population up to 6,000. After that the +Mariposa Times-Herald makes an estimate that runs the figures up to +6,500. Then Mr. Gingham, the undertaker, who collects the vital +statistics for the provincial government, makes an estimate from the +number of what he calls the "demised" as compared with the less +interesting persons who are still alive, and brings the population to +7,000. After that somebody else works it out that it's 7,500; then +the man behind the bar of the Mariposa House offers to bet the whole +room that there are 9,000 people in Mariposa. That settles it, and +the population is well on the way to 10,000, when down swoops the +federal census taker on his next round and the town has to begin all +over again. + +Still, it is a thriving town and there is no doubt of it. Even the +transcontinental railways, as any townsman will tell you, run through +Mariposa. It is true that the trains mostly go through at night and +don't stop. But in the wakeful silence of the summer night you may +hear the long whistle of the through train for the west as it tears +through Mariposa, rattling over the switches and past the semaphores +and ending in a long, sullen roar as it takes the trestle bridge over +the Ossawippi. Or, better still, on a winter evening about eight +o'clock you will see the long row of the Pullmans and diners of the +night express going north to the mining country, the windows flashing +with brilliant light, and within them a vista of cut glass and +snow-white table linen, smiling negroes and millionaires with napkins +at their chins whirling past in the driving snowstorm. + +I can tell you the people of Mariposa are proud of the trains, even +if they don't stop! The joy of being on the main line lifts the +Mariposa people above the level of their neighbours in such places as +Tecumseh and Nichols Corners into the cosmopolitan atmosphere of +through traffic and the larger life. Of course, they have their own +train, too--the Mariposa Local, made up right there in the station +yard, and running south to the city a hundred miles away. That, of +course, is a real train, with a box stove on end in the passenger +car, fed with cordwood upside down, and with seventeen flat cars of +pine lumber set between the passenger car and the locomotive so as to +give the train its full impact when shunting. + +Outside of Mariposa there are farms that begin well but get thinner +and meaner as you go on, and end sooner or later in bush and swamp +and the rock of the north country. And beyond that again, as the +background of it all, though it's far away, you are somehow aware of +the great pine woods of the lumber country reaching endlessly into +the north. + +Not that the little town is always gay or always bright in the +sunshine. There never was such a place for changing its character +with the season. Dark enough and dull it seems of a winter night, the +wooden sidewalks creaking with the frost, and the lights burning dim +behind the shop windows. In olden times the lights were coal oil +lamps; now, of course, they are, or are supposed to be, electricity, +brought from the power house on the lower Ossawippi nineteen miles +away. But, somehow, though it starts off as electricity from the +Ossawippi rapids, by the time it gets to Mariposa and filters into +the little bulbs behind the frosty windows of the shops, it has +turned into coal oil again, as yellow and bleared as ever. + +After the winter, the snow melts and the ice goes out of the lake, +the sun shines high and the shanty-men come down from the lumber +woods and lie round drunk on the sidewalk outside of Smith's +Hotel--and that's spring time. Mariposa is then a fierce, dangerous +lumber town, calculated to terrorize the soul of a newcomer who does +not understand that this also is only an appearance and that +presently the rough-looking shanty-men will change their clothes and +turn back again into farmers. + +Then the sun shines warmer and the maple trees come out and Lawyer +Macartney puts on his tennis trousers, and that's summer time. The +little town changes to a sort of summer resort. There are visitors up +from the city. Every one of the seven cottages along the lake is +full. The Mariposa Belle churns the waters of the Wissanotti into +foam as she sails out from the wharf, in a cloud of flags, the band +playing and the daughters and sisters of the Knights of Pythias +dancing gaily on the deck. + +That changes too. The days shorten. The visitors disappear. The +golden rod beside the meadow droops and withers on its stem. The +maples blaze in glory and die. The evening closes dark and chill, and +in the gloom of the main corner of Mariposa the Salvation Army around +a naphtha lamp lift up the confession of their sins--and that is +autumn. Thus the year runs its round, moving and changing in +Mariposa, much as it does in other places. + +If, then, you feel that you know the town well enough to be admitted +into the inner life and movement of it, walk down this June afternoon +half way down the Main Street--or, if you like, half way up from the +wharf--to where Mr. Smith is standing at the door of his hostelry. +You will feel as you draw near that it is no ordinary man that you +approach. It is not alone the huge bulk of Mr. Smith (two hundred +and eighty pounds as tested on Netley's scales). It is not merely his +costume, though the chequered waistcoat of dark blue with a flowered +pattern forms, with his shepherd's plaid trousers, his grey spats and +patent-leather boots, a colour scheme of no mean order. Nor is it +merely Mr. Smith's finely mottled face. The face, no doubt, is a +notable one,--solemn, inexpressible, unreadable, the face of the +heaven-born hotel keeper. It is more than that. It is the strange +dominating personality of the man that somehow holds you captive. I +know nothing in history to compare with the position of Mr. Smith +among those who drink over his bar, except, though in a lesser +degree, the relation of the Emperor Napoleon to the Imperial Guard. + +When you meet Mr. Smith first you think he looks like an over-dressed +pirate. Then you begin to think him a character. You wonder at his +enormous bulk. Then the utter hopelessness of knowing what Smith is +thinking by merely looking at his features gets on your mind and +makes the Mona Lisa seem an open book and the ordinary human +countenance as superficial as a puddle in the sunlight. After you +have had a drink in Mr. Smith's bar, and he has called you by your +Christian name, you realize that you are dealing with one of the +greatest minds in the hotel business. + +Take, for instance, the big sign that sticks out into the street +above Mr. Smith's head as he stands. What is on it? "JOS. SMITH, +PROP." Nothing more, and yet the thing was a flash of genius. Other +men who had had the hotel before Mr. Smith had called it by such +feeble names as the Royal Hotel and the Queen's and the Alexandria. +Every one of them failed. When Mr. Smith took over the hotel he +simply put up the sign with "JOS. SMITH, PROP.," and then stood +underneath in the sunshine as a living proof that a man who weighs +nearly three hundred pounds is the natural king of the hotel +business. + +But on this particular afternoon, in spite of the sunshine and deep +peace, there was something as near to profound concern and anxiety as +the features of Mr. Smith were ever known to express. + +The moment was indeed an anxious one. Mr. Smith was awaiting a +telegram from his legal adviser who had that day journeyed to the +county town to represent the proprietor's interest before the +assembled License Commissioners. If you know anything of the hotel +business at all, you will understand that as beside the decisions of +the License Commissioners of Missinaba County, the opinions of the +Lords of the Privy Council are mere trifles. + +The matter in question was very grave. The Mariposa Court had just +fined Mr. Smith for the second time for selling liquors after hours. +The Commissioners, therefore, were entitled to cancel the license. + +Mr. Smith knew his fault and acknowledged it. He had broken the law. +How he had come to do so, it passed his imagination to recall. Crime +always seems impossible in retrospect. By what sheer madness of the +moment could he have shut up the bar on the night in question, and +shut Judge Pepperleigh, the district judge in Missinaba County, +outside of it? The more so inasmuch as the closing up of the bar +under the rigid license law of the province was a matter that the +proprietor never trusted to any hands but his own. Punctually every +night at 11 o'clock Mr. Smith strolled from the desk of the +"rotunda" to the door of the bar. If it seemed properly full of +people and all was bright and cheerful, then he closed it. If not, he +kept it open a few minutes longer till he had enough people inside to +warrant closing. But never, never unless he was assured that +Pepperleigh, the judge of the court, and Macartney, the prosecuting +attorney, were both safely in the bar, or the bar parlour, did the +proprietor venture to close up. Yet on this fatal night Pepperleigh +and Macartney had been shut out--actually left on the street without +a drink, and compelled to hammer and beat at the street door of the +bar to gain admittance. + +This was the kind of thing not to be tolerated. Either a hotel must +be run decently or quit. An information was laid next day and Mr. +Smith convicted in four minutes,--his lawyers practically refusing to +plead. The Mariposa court, when the presiding judge was cold sober, +and it had the force of public opinion behind it, was a terrible +engine of retributive justice. + +So no wonder that Mr. Smith awaited with anxiety the message of his +legal adviser. + +He looked alternately up the street and down it again, hauled out his +watch from the depths of his embroidered pocket, and examined the +hour hand and the minute hand and the second hand with frowning +scrutiny. + +Then wearily, and as one mindful that a hotel man is ever the servant +of the public, he turned back into the hotel. + +"Billy," he said to the desk clerk, "if a wire comes bring it into +the bar parlour." + +The voice of Mr. Smith is of a deep guttural such as Plancon or +Edouard de Reske might have obtained had they had the advantages of +the hotel business. And with that, Mr. Smith, as was his custom in +off moments, joined his guests in the back room. His appearance, to +the untrained eye, was merely that of an extremely stout hotelkeeper +walking from the rotunda to the back bar. In reality, Mr. Smith was +on the eve of one of the most brilliant and daring strokes ever +effected in the history of licensed liquor. When I say that it was +out of the agitation of this situation that Smith's Ladies' and +Gent's Cafe originated, anybody who knows Mariposa will understand +the magnitude of the moment. + +Mr. Smith, then, moved slowly from the doorway of the hotel through +the "rotunda," or more simply the front room with the desk and the +cigar case in it, and so to the bar and thence to the little room or +back bar behind it. In this room, as I have said, the brightest minds +of Mariposa might commonly be found in the quieter part of a summer +afternoon. + +To-day there was a group of four who looked up as Mr. Smith entered, +somewhat sympathetically, and evidently aware of the perplexities of +the moment. + +Henry Mullins and George Duff, the two bank managers, were both +present. Mullins is a rather short, rather round, smooth-shaven man +of less than forty, wearing one of those round banking suits of +pepper and salt, with a round banking hat of hard straw, and with the +kind of gold tie-pin and heavy watch-chain and seals necessary to +inspire confidence in matters of foreign exchange. Duff is just as +round and just as short, and equally smoothly shaven, while his seals +and straw hat are calculated to prove that the Commercial is just as +sound a bank as the Exchange. From the technical point of view of the +banking business, neither of them had any objection to being in +Smith's Hotel or to taking a drink as long as the other was present. +This, of course, was one of the cardinal principles of Mariposa +banking. + +Then there was Mr. Diston, the high school teacher, commonly known as +the "one who drank." None of the other teachers ever entered a hotel +unless accompanied by a lady or protected by a child. But as Mr. +Diston was known to drink beer on occasions and to go in and out of +the Mariposa House and Smith's Hotel, he was looked upon as a man +whose life was a mere wreck. Whenever the School Board raised the +salaries of the other teachers, fifty or sixty dollars per annum at +one lift, it was well understood that public morality wouldn't permit +of an increase for Mr. Diston. + +Still more noticeable, perhaps, was the quiet, sallow looking man +dressed in black, with black gloves and with black silk hat heavily +craped and placed hollow-side-up on a chair. This was Mr. Golgotha +Gingham, the undertaker of Mariposa, and his dress was due to the +fact that he had just come from what he called an "interment." Mr. +Gingham had the true spirit of his profession, and such words as +"funeral" or "coffin" or "hearse" never passed his lips. He spoke +always of "interments," of "caskets," and "coaches," using terms that +were calculated rather to bring out the majesty and sublimity of +death than to parade its horrors. + +To be present at the hotel was in accord with Mr. Gingham's general +conception of his business. No man had ever grasped the true +principles of undertaking more thoroughly than Mr. Gingham. I have +often heard him explain that to associate with the living, +uninteresting though they appear, is the only way to secure the +custom of the dead. + +"Get to know people really well while they are alive," said Mr. +Gingham; "be friends with them, close friends and then when they die +you don't need to worry. You'll get the order every time." + +So, naturally, as the moment was one of sympathy, it was Mr. +Gingham who spoke first. + +"What'll you do, Josh," he said, "if the Commissioners go against +you?" + +"Boys," said Mr. Smith, "I don't rightly know. If I have to quit, the +next move is to the city. But I don't reckon that I will have to +quit. I've got an idee that I think's good every time." + +"Could you run a hotel in the city?" asked Mullins. + +"I could," said Mr. Smith. "I'll tell you. There's big things doin' +in the hotel business right now, big chances if you go into it right. +Hotels in the city is branching out. Why, you take the dining-room +side of it," continued Mr. Smith, looking round at the group, +"there's thousands in it. The old plan's all gone. Folks won't eat +now in an ordinary dining-room with a high ceiling and windows. You +have to get 'em down underground in a room with no windows and lots +of sawdust round and waiters that can't speak English. I seen them +places last time I was in the city. They call 'em Rats' Coolers. And +for light meals they want a Caff, a real French Caff, and for folks +that come in late another place that they call a Girl Room that don't +shut up at all. If I go to the city that's the kind of place I mean +to run. What's yours, Gol? It's on the house?" + +And it was just at the moment when Mr. Smith said this that Billy, +the desk-clerk, entered the room with the telegram in his hand. + +But stop--it is impossible for you to understand the anxiety with +which Mr. Smith and his associates awaited the news from the +Commissioners, without first realizing the astounding progress of Mr. +Smith in the three past years, and the pinnacle of public eminence to +which he had attained. + +Mr. Smith had come down from the lumber country of the Spanish River, +where the divide is toward the Hudson Bay,--"back north" as they +called it in Mariposa. + +He had been, it was said, a cook in the lumber shanties. To this day +Mr. Smith can fry an egg on both sides with a lightness of touch that +is the despair of his own "help." + +After that, he had run a river driver's boarding-house. + +After that, he had taken a food contract for a gang of railroad +navvies on the transcontinental. + +After that, of course, the whole world was open to him. + +He came down to Mariposa and bought out the "inside" of what had been +the Royal Hotel. + +Those who are educated understand that by the "inside" of a hotel is +meant everything except the four outer walls of it--the fittings, the +furniture, the bar, Billy the desk-clerk, the three dining-room +girls, and above all the license granted by King Edward VII., and +ratified further by King George, for the sale of intoxicating +liquors. + +Till then the Royal had been a mere nothing. As "Smith's Hotel" it +broke into a blaze of effulgence. + +From the first, Mr. Smith, as a proprietor, was a wild, rapturous +success. + +He had all the qualifications. + +He weighed two hundred and eighty pounds. + +He could haul two drunken men out of the bar each by the scruff of +the neck without the faintest anger or excitement. + +He carried money enough in his trousers pockets to start a bank, and +spent it on anything, bet it on anything, and gave it away in +handfuls. + +He was never drunk, and, as a point of chivalry to his customers, +never quite sober. Anybody was free of the hotel who cared to come +in. Anybody who didn't like it could go out. Drinks of all kinds cost +five cents, or six for a quarter. Meals and beds were practically +free. Any persons foolish enough to go to the desk and pay for them, +Mr. Smith charged according to the expression of their faces. + +At first the loafers and the shanty men settled down on the place in +a shower. But that was not the "trade" that Mr. Smith wanted. He knew +how to get rid of them. An army of charwomen, turned into the hotel, +scrubbed it from top to bottom. A vacuum cleaner, the first seen in +Mariposa, hissed and screamed in the corridors. Forty brass beds were +imported from the city, not, of course, for the guests to sleep in, +but to keep them out. A bar-tender with a starched coat and wicker +sleeves was put behind the bar. + +The loafers were put out of business. The place had become too "high +toned" for them. + +To get the high class trade, Mr. Smith set himself to dress the part. +He wore wide cut coats of filmy serge, light as gossamer; chequered +waistcoats with a pattern for every day in the week; fedora hats +light as autumn leaves; four-in-hand ties of saffron and myrtle green +with a diamond pin the size of a hazel nut. On his fingers there were +as many gems as would grace a native prince of India; across his +waistcoat lay a gold watch-chain in huge square links and in his +pocket a gold watch that weighed a pound and a half and marked +minutes, seconds and quarter seconds. Just to look at Josh Smith's +watch brought at least ten men to the bar every evening. + +Every morning Mr. Smith was shaved by Jefferson Thorpe, across the +way. All that art could do, all that Florida water could effect, was +lavished on his person. + +Mr. Smith became a local character. Mariposa was at his feet. All the +reputable business-men drank at Mr. Smith's bar, and in the little +parlour behind it you might find at any time a group of the brightest +intellects in the town. + +Not but what there was opposition at first. The clergy, for example, +who accepted the Mariposa House and the Continental as a necessary +and useful evil, looked askance at the blazing lights and the surging +crowd of Mr. Smith's saloon. They preached against him. When the Rev. +Dean Drone led off with a sermon on the text "Lord be merciful even +unto this publican Matthew Six," it was generally understood as an +invitation to strike Mr. Smith dead. In the same way the sermon at +the Presbyterian church the week after was on the text "Lo what now +doeth Abiram in the land of Melchisideck Kings Eight and Nine?" and it +was perfectly plain that what was meant was, "Lo, what is Josh Smith +doing in Mariposa?" + +But this opposition had been countered by a wide and sagacious +philanthropy. I think Mr. Smith first got the idea of that on the +night when the steam merry-go-round came to Mariposa. Just below the +hostelry, on an empty lot, it whirled and whistled, steaming forth +its tunes on the summer evening while the children crowded round it +in hundreds. Down the street strolled Mr. Smith, wearing a soft +fedora to indicate that it was evening. + +"What d'you charge for a ride, boss?" said Mr. Smith. + +"Two for a nickel," said the man. + +"Take that," said Mr. Smith, handing out a ten-dollar bill from a +roll of money, "and ride the little folks free all evening." + +That night the merry-go-round whirled madly till after midnight, +freighted to capacity with Mariposa children, while up in Smith's +Hotel, parents, friends and admirers, as the news spread, were +standing four deep along the bar. They sold forty dollars' worth of +lager alone that night, and Mr. Smith learned, if he had not already +suspected it, the blessedness of giving. + +The uses of philanthropy went further. Mr. Smith subscribed to +everything, joined everything, gave to everything. He became an +Oddfellow, a Forester, A Knight of Pythias and a Workman. He gave a +hundred dollars to the Mariposa Hospital and a hundred dollars to the +Young Men's Christian Association. + +He subscribed to the Ball Club, the Lacrosse Club, the Curling Club, +to anything, in fact, and especially to all those things which needed +premises to meet in and grew thirsty in their discussions. + +As a consequence the Oddfellows held their annual banquet at Smith's +Hotel and the Oyster Supper of the Knights of Pythias was celebrated +in Mr. Smith's dining-room. + +Even more effective, perhaps, were Mr. Smith's secret benefactions, +the kind of giving done by stealth of which not a soul in town knew +anything, often, for a week after it was done. It was in this way +that Mr. Smith put the new font in Dean Drone's church, and handed +over a hundred dollars to Judge Pepperleigh for the unrestrained use +of the Conservative party. + +So it came about that, little by little, the antagonism had died +down. Smith's Hotel became an accepted institution in Mariposa. Even +the temperance people were proud of Mr. Smith as a sort of character +who added distinction to the town. There were moments, in the earlier +quiet of the morning, when Dean Drone would go so far as to step in +to the "rotunda" and collect a subscription. As for the Salvation +Army, they ran in and out all the time unreproved. + +On only one point difficulty still remained. That was the closing of +the bar. Mr. Smith could never bring his mind to it,--not as a matter +of profit, but as a point of honour. It was too much for him to feel +that Judge Pepperleigh might be out on the sidewalk thirsty at +midnight, that the night hands of the Times-Herald on Wednesday might +be compelled to go home dry. On this point Mr. Smith's moral code was +simplicity itself,--do what is right and take the consequences. So +the bar stayed open. + +Every town, I suppose, has its meaner spirits. In every genial bosom +some snake is warmed,--or, as Mr. Smith put it to Golgotha +Gingham--"there are some fellers even in this town skunks enough to +inform." + +At first the Mariposa court quashed all indictments. The presiding +judge, with his spectacles on and a pile of books in front of him, +threatened the informer with the penitentiary. The whole bar of +Mariposa was with Mr. Smith. But by sheer iteration the informations +had proved successful. Judge Pepperleigh learned that Mr. Smith had +subscribed a hundred dollars for the Liberal party and at once fined +him for keeping open after hours. That made one conviction. On the +top of this had come the untoward incident just mentioned and that +made two. Beyond that was the deluge. This then was the exact +situation when Billy, the desk clerk, entered the back bar with the +telegram in his hand. + +"Here's your wire, sir," he said. + +"What does it say?" said Mr. Smith. + +He always dealt with written documents with a fine air of detachment. +I don't suppose there were ten people in Mariposa who knew that Mr. +Smith couldn't read. + +Billy opened the message and read, "Commissioners give you three +months to close down." + +"Let me read it," said Mr. Smith, "that's right, three months to +close down." + +There was dead silence when the message was read. Everybody waited +for Mr. Smith to speak. Mr. Gingham instinctively assumed the +professional air of hopeless melancholy. + +As it was afterwards recorded, Mr. Smith stood and "studied" with the +tray in his hand for at least four minutes. Then he spoke. + +"Boys," he said, "I'll be darned if I close down till I'm ready to +close down. I've got an idee. You wait and I'll show you." + +And beyond that, not another word did Mr. Smith say on the subject. + +But within forty-eight hours the whole town knew that something was +doing. The hotel swarmed with carpenters, bricklayers and painters. +There was an architect up from the city with a bundle of blue prints +in his hand. There was an engineer taking the street level with a +theodolite, and a gang of navvies with shovels digging like fury as +if to dig out the back foundations of the hotel. + +"That'll fool 'em," said Mr. Smith. + +Half the town was gathered round the hotel crazy with excitement. But +not a word would the proprietor say. Great dray loads of square +timber, and two-by-eight pine joists kept arriving from the planing +mill. There was a pile of matched spruce sixteen feet high lying by +the sidewalk. + +Then the excavation deepened and the dirt flew, and the beams went up +and the joists across, and all the day from dawn till dusk the +hammers of the carpenters clattered away, working overtime at time +and a half. + +"It don't matter what it costs," said Mr. Smith; "get it done." + +Rapidly the structure took form. It extended down the side street, +joining the hotel at a right angle. Spacious and graceful it looked +as it reared its uprights into the air. + +Already you could see the place where the row of windows was to come, +a veritable palace of glass, it must be, so wide and commodious were +they. Below it, you could see the basement shaping itself, with a low +ceiling like a vault and big beams running across, dressed, smoothed, +and ready for staining. Already in the street there were seven crates +of red and white awning. + +And even then nobody knew what it was, and it was not till the +seventeenth day that Mr. Smith, in the privacy of the back bar, broke +the silence and explained. + +"I tell you, boys," he says, "it's a caff--like what they have in the +city--a ladies' and gent's caff, and that underneath (what's yours, +Mr. Mullins?) is a Rats' Cooler. And when I get her started, I'll +hire a French Chief to do the cooking, and for the winter I will put +in a 'girl room,' like what they have in the city hotels. And I'd +like to see who's going to close her up then." + +Within two more weeks the plan was in operation. Not only was the +caff built but the very hotel was transformed. Awnings had broken +out in a red and white cloud upon its face, its every window carried +a box of hanging plants, and above in glory floated the Union Jack. +The very stationery was changed. The place was now Smith's Summer +Pavilion. It was advertised in the city as Smith's Tourists' +Emporium, and Smith's Northern Health Resort. Mr. Smith got the +editor of the Times-Herald to write up a circular all about ozone and +the Mariposa pine woods, with illustrations of the maskinonge (piscis +mariposis) of Lake Wissanotti. + +The Saturday after that circular hit the city in July, there were men +with fishing rods and landing nets pouring in on every train, almost +too fast to register. And if, in the face of that, a few little drops +of whiskey were sold over the bar, who thought of it? + +But the caff! that, of course, was the crowning glory of the thing, +that and the Rats' Cooler below. + +Light and cool, with swinging windows open to the air, tables with +marble tops, palms, waiters in white coats--it was the standing +marvel of Mariposa. Not a soul in the town except Mr. Smith, who knew +it by instinct, ever guessed that waiters and palms and marble tables +can be rented over the long distance telephone. + +Mr. Smith was as good as his word. He got a French Chief with an +aristocratic saturnine countenance, and a moustache and imperial that +recalled the late Napoleon III. No one knew where Mr. Smith got him. +Some people in the town said he was a French marquis. Others said he +was a count and explained the difference. + +No one in Mariposa had ever seen anything like the caff. All down +the side of it were the grill fires, with great pewter dish covers +that went up and down on a chain, and you could walk along the row +and actually pick out your own cutlet and then see the French marquis +throw it on to the broiling iron; you could watch a buckwheat pancake +whirled into existence under your eyes and see fowls' legs devilled, +peppered, grilled, and tormented till they lost all semblance of the +original Mariposa chicken. + +Mr. Smith, of course, was in his glory. + +"What have you got to-day, Alf?" he would say, as he strolled over to +the marquis. The name of the Chief was, I believe Alphonse, but "Alf" +was near enough for Mr. Smith. + +The marquis would extend to the proprietor the menu, "Voila, m'sieu, +la carte du jour." + +Mr. Smith, by the way, encouraged the use of the French language in +the caff. He viewed it, of course, solely in its relation to the +hotel business, and, I think, regarded it as a recent invention. + +"It's comin' in all the time in the city," he said, "and y'aint +expected to understand it." + +Mr. Smith would take the carte between his finger and thumb and stare +at it. It was all covered with such devices as Potage la +Mariposa--Filet Mignon a la proprietaire--Cotellete a la Smith, and +so on. + +But the greatest thing about the caff were the prices. Therein +lay, as everybody saw at once, the hopeless simplicity of Mr. Smith. + +The prices stood fast at 25 cents a meal. You could come in and eat +all they had in the caff for a quarter. + +"No, sir," Mr. Smith said stoutly, "I ain't going to try to raise no +prices on the public. The hotel's always been a quarter and the +caff's a quarter." + +Full? Full of people? + +Well, I should think so! From the time the caff opened at 11 till it +closed at 8.30, you could hardly find a table. Tourists, visitors, +travellers, and half the people of Mariposa crowded at the little +tables; crockery rattling, glasses tinkling on trays, corks popping, +the waiters in their white coats flying to and fro, Alphonse whirling +the cutlets and pancakes into the air, and in and through it all, Mr. +Smith, in a white flannel suit and a broad crimson sash about his +waist. Crowded and gay from morning to night, and even noisy in its +hilarity. + +Noisy, yes; but if you wanted deep quiet and cool, if you wanted to +step from the glare of a Canadian August to the deep shadow of an +enchanted glade,--walk down below into the Rats' Cooler. There you +had it; dark old beams (who could believe they were put there a month +ago?), great casks set on end with legends such as Amontillado Fino +done in gilt on a black ground, tall steins filled with German beer +soft as moss, and a German waiter noiseless as moving foam. He who +entered the Rats' Cooler at three of a summer afternoon was buried +there for the day. Mr. Golgotha Gingham spent anything from four to +seven hours there of every day. In his mind the place had all the +quiet charm of an interment, with none of its sorrows. + +But at night, when Mr. Smith and Billy, the desk clerk, opened up the +cash register and figured out the combined losses of the caff and the +Rats' Cooler, Mr. Smith would say: + +"Billy, just wait till I get the license renood, and I'll close +up this damn caff so tight they'll never know what hit her. +What did that lamb cost? Fifty cents a pound, was it? I figure it, +Billy, that every one of them hogs eats about a dollar's worth a grub +for every twenty-five cents they pay on it. As for Alf--by gosh, I'm +through with him." + +But that, of course, was only a confidential matter as between Mr. +Smith and Billy. + +I don't know at what precise period it was that the idea of a +petition to the License Commissioners first got about the town. No +one seemed to know just who suggested it. But certain it was that +public opinion began to swing strongly towards the support of Mr. +Smith. I think it was perhaps on the day after the big fish dinner +that Alphonse cooked for the Mariposa Canoe Club (at twenty cents a +head) that the feeling began to find open expression. People said it +was a shame that a man like Josh Smith should be run out of Mariposa +by three license commissioners. Who were the license commissioners, +anyway? Why, look at the license system they had in Sweden; yes, and +in Finland and in South America. Or, for the matter of that, look at +the French and Italians, who drink all day and all night. Aren't they +all right? Aren't they a musical people? Take Napoleon, and Victor +Hugo; drunk half the time, and yet look what they did. + +I quote these arguments not for their own sake, but merely to +indicate the changing temper of public opinion in Mariposa. Men would +sit in the caff at lunch perhaps for an hour and a half and talk +about the license question in general, and then go down into the +Rats' Cooler and talk about it for two hours more. + +It was amazing the way the light broke in in the case of particular +individuals, often the most unlikely, and quelled their opposition. + +Take, for example, the editor of the Newspacket. I suppose there +wasn't a greater temperance advocate in town. Yet Alphonse queered +him with an Omelette a la License in one meal. + +Or take Pepperleigh himself, the judge of the Mariposa court. He was +put to the bad with a game pie,--pate normand aux fines herbes--the +real thing, as good as a trip to Paris in itself. After eating it, +Pepperleigh had the common sense to realize that it was sheer madness +to destroy a hotel that could cook a thing like that. + +In the same way, the secretary of the School Board was silenced with +a stuffed duck a la Ossawippi. + +Three members of the town council were converted with a Dindon farci +a la Josh Smith. + +And then, finally, Mr. Diston persuaded Dean Drone to come, and as +soon as Mr. Smith and Alphonse saw him they landed him with a fried +flounder that even the apostles would have appreciated. + +After that, every one knew that the license question was practically +settled. The petition was all over the town. It was printed in +duplicate at the Newspacket and you could see it lying on the counter +of every shop in Mariposa. Some of the people signed it twenty or +thirty times. + +It was the right kind of document too. It began--"Whereas in the +bounty of providence the earth putteth forth her luscious fruits and +her vineyards for the delight and enjoyment of mankind--" It made you +thirsty just to read it. Any man who read that petition over was wild +to get to the Rats' Cooler. + +When it was all signed up they had nearly three thousand names on it. + +Then Nivens, the lawyer, and Mr. Gingham (as a provincial official) +took it down to the county town, and by three o'clock that afternoon +the news had gone out from the long distance telephone office that +Smith's license was renewed for three years. + +Rejoicings! Well, I should think so! Everybody was down wanting to +shake hands with Mr. Smith. They told him that he had done more to +boom Mariposa than any ten men in town. Some of them said he ought to +run for the town council, and others wanted to make him the +Conservative candidate for the next Dominion election. The caff was a +mere babel of voices, and even the Rats' Cooler was almost floated +away from its moorings. + +And in the middle of it all, Mr. Smith found time to say to Billy, +the desk clerk: "Take the cash registers out of the caff and the +Rats' Cooler and start counting up the books." + +And Billy said: "Will I write the letters for the palms and the +tables and the stuff to go back?" + +And Mr. Smith said: "Get 'em written right away." + +So all evening the laughter and the chatter and the congratulations +went on, and it wasn't till long after midnight that Mr. Smith was +able to join Billy in the private room behind the "rotunda." Even +when he did, there was a quiet and a dignity about his manner that +had never been there before. I think it must have been the new halo +of the Conservative candidacy that already radiated from his brow. It +was, I imagine, at this very moment that Mr. Smith first realised +that the hotel business formed the natural and proper threshold of +the national legislature. + +"Here's the account of the cash registers," said Billy. + +"Let me see it," said Mr. Smith. And he studied the figures without a +word. + +"And here's the letters about the palms, and here's Alphonse up to +yesterday--" + +And then an amazing thing happened. + +"Billy," said Mr. Smith, "tear'em up. I ain't going to do it. It +ain't right and I won't do it. They got me the license for to keep +the caff and I'm going to keep the caff. I don't need to close her. +The bar's good for anything from forty to a hundred a day now, with +the Rats' Cooler going good, and that caff will stay right here." + +And stay it did. + +There it stands, mind you, to this day. You've only to step round the +corner of Smith's Hotel on the side street and read the sign: LADIES' +AND GENT'S CAFE, just as large and as imposing as ever. + +Mr. Smith said that he'd keep the caff, and when he saida thing he +meant it! + +Of course there were changes, small changes. + +I don't say, mind you, that the fillet de beef that you get there now +is perhaps quite up to the level of the filet de boeufs aux +champignons of the days of glory. + +No doubt the lamb chops in Smith's Caff are often very much the same, +nowadays, as the lamb chops of the Mariposa House or the Continental. + +Of course, things like Omelette aux Trufles practically died out when +Alphonse went. And, naturally, the leaving of Alphonse was +inevitable. No one knew just when he went, or why. But one morning he +was gone. Mr. Smith said that "Alf had to go back to his folks in the +old country." + +So, too, when Alf left, the use of the French language, as such, fell +off tremendously in the caff. Even now they use it to some extent. +You can still get fillet de beef, and saucisson au juice, but Billy +the desk clerk has considerable trouble with the spelling. + +The Rats' Cooler, of course, closed down, or rather Mr. Smith closed +it for repairs, and there is every likelihood that it will hardly +open for three years. But the caff is there. They don't use the +grills, because there's no need to, with the hotel kitchen so handy. + +The "girl room," I may say, was never opened. Mr. Smith promised it, +it is true, for the winter, and still talks of it. But somehow +there's been a sort of feeling against it. Every one in town admits +that every big hotel in the city has a "girl room" and that it must +be all right. Still, there's a certain--well, you know how sensitive +opinion is in a place like Mariposa. + + + +TWO + +The Speculations of Jefferson Thorpe + +It was not until the mining boom, at the time when everybody went +simply crazy over the Cobalt and Porcupine mines of the new silver +country near the Hudson Bay, that Jefferson Thorpe reached what you +might call public importance in Mariposa. + +Of course everybody knew Jeff and his little barber shop that stood +just across the street from Smith's Hotel. Everybody knew him and +everybody got shaved there. From early morning, when the commercial +travellers off the 6.30 express got shaved into the resemblance of +human beings, there were always people going in and out of the barber +shop. + +Mullins, the manager of the Exchange Bank, took his morning shave +from Jeff as a form of resuscitation, with enough wet towels laid on +his face to stew him and with Jeff moving about in the steam, razor +in hand, as grave as an operating surgeon. + +Then, as I think I said, Mr. Smith came in every morning and there +was a tremendous outpouring of Florida water and rums, essences and +revivers and renovators, regardless of expense. What with Jeff's +white coat and Mr. Smith's flowered waistcoat and the red geranium in +the window and the Florida water and the double extract of hyacinth, +the little shop seemed multi-coloured and luxurious enough for the +annex of a Sultan's harem. + +But what I mean is that, till the mining boom, Jefferson Thorpe never +occupied a position of real prominence in Mariposa. You couldn't, for +example, have compared him with a man like Golgotha Gingham, who, as +undertaker, stood in a direct relation to life and death, or to +Trelawney, the postmaster, who drew money from the Federal Government +of Canada, and was regarded as virtually a member of the Dominion +Cabinet. + +Everybody knew Jeff and liked him, but the odd thing was that till he +made money nobody took any stock in his ideas at all. It was only +after he made the "clean up" that they came to see what a splendid +fellow he was. "Level-headed" I think was the term; indeed in the +speech of Mariposa, the highest form of endowment was to have the +head set on horizontally as with a theodolite. + +As I say, it was when Jeff made money that they saw how gifted he +was, and when he lost it,--but still, there's no need to go into +that. I believe it's something the same in other places too. + +The barber shop, you will remember, stands across the street from +Smith's Hotel, and stares at it face to face. + +It is one of those wooden structures--I don't know whether you know +them--with a false front that sticks up above its real height and +gives it an air at once rectangular and imposing. It is a form of +architecture much used in Mariposa and understood to be in keeping +with the pretentious and artificial character of modern business. +There is a red, white and blue post in front of the shop and the shop +itself has a large square window out of proportion to its little flat +face. + +Painted on the panes of the window is the remains of a legend that +once spelt BARBER SHOP, executed with the flourishes that prevailed +in the golden age of sign painting in Mariposa. Through the window +you can see the geraniums in the window shelf and behind them Jeff +Thorpe with his little black scull cap on and his spectacles drooped +upon his nose as he bends forward in the absorption of shaving. + +As you open the door, it sets in violent agitation a coiled spring up +above and a bell that almost rings. Inside, there are two shaving +chairs of the heavier, or electrocution pattern, with mirrors in +front of them and pigeon holes with individual shaving mugs. There +must be ever so many of them, fifteen or sixteen. It is the current +supposition of each of Jeff's customers that everyone else but +himself uses a separate mug. One corner of the shop is partitioned +off and bears the sign: HOT AND COLD BATHS, 50 CENTS. There has been +no bath inside the partition for twenty years--only old newspapers +and a mop. Still, it lends distinction somehow, just as do the faded +cardboard signs that hang against the mirror with the legends: +TURKISH SHAMPOO, 75 CENTS, and ROMAN MASSAGE, $1.00. + +They said commonly in Mariposa that Jeff made money out of the barber +shop. He may have, and it may have been that that turned his mind to +investment. But it's hard to see how he could. A shave cost five +cents, and a hair-cut fifteen (or the two, if you liked, for a +quarter), and at that it is hard to see how he could make money, even +when he had both chairs going and shaved first in one and then in the +other. + +You see, in Mariposa, shaving isn't the hurried, perfunctory thing +that it is in the city. A shave is looked upon as a form of physical +pleasure and lasts anywhere from twenty-five minutes to three-quarters +of an hour. + +In the morning hours, perhaps, there was a semblance of haste about +it, but in the long quiet of the afternoon, as Jeff leaned forward +towards the customerand talked to him in a soft confidential +monotone, like a portrait painter, the razor would go slower and +slower, and pause and stop, move and pause again, till the shave died +away into the mere drowse of conversation. + +At such hours, the Mariposa barber shop would become a very Palace of +Slumber, and as you waited your turn in one of the wooden arm-chairs +beside the wall, what with the quiet of the hour, and the low drone +of Jeff's conversation, the buzzing of the flies against the window +pane and the measured tick of the clock above the mirror, your head +sank dreaming on your breast, and the Mariposa Newspacket rustled +unheeded on the floor. It makes one drowsy just to think of it! + +The conversation, of course, was the real charm of the place. You +see, Jefferson's forte, or specialty, was information. He could tell +you more things within the compass of a half-hour's shave than you +get in days of laborious research in an encyclopaedia. Where he got +it all, I don't know, but I am inclined to think it came more or less +out of the newspapers. + +In the city, people never read the newspapers, not really, only +little bits and scraps of them. But in Mariposa it's different. There +they read the whole thing from cover to cover, and they build up on +it, in the course of years, a range of acquirement that would put a +college president to the blush. Anybody who has ever heard Henry +Mullins and Peter Glover talk about the future of China will know +just what I mean. + +And, of course, the peculiarity of Jeff's conversation was that he +could suit it to his man every time. He had a kind of divination +about it. There was a certain kind of man that Jeff would size up +sideways as he stropped the razor, and in whose ear he would whisper: +"I see where Saint Louis has took four straight games off +Chicago,"--and so hold him fascinated to the end. + +In the same way he would say to Mr. Smith: "I see where it says that +this 'Flying Squirl' run a dead heat for the King's Plate." + +To a humble intellect like mine he would explain in full the +relations of the Keesar to the German Rich Dog. + +But first and foremost, Jeff's specialty in the way of conversation +was finance and the money market, the huge fortunes that a man with +the right kind of head could make. + +I've known Jefferson to pause in his shaving with the razor suspended +in the air as long as five minutes while he described, with his eye +half closed, exactly the kind of a head a man needed in order to make +a "haul" or a "clean up." It was evidently simply a matter of the +head, and as far as one could judge, Jeff's own was the very type +required. I don't know just at what time or how Jefferson first +began his speculative enterprises. It was probably in him from the +start. There is no doubt that the very idea of such things as +Traction Stock and Amalgamated Asbestos went to his head: and +whenever he spoke of Mr. Carnegie and Mr. Rockefeller, the yearning +tone of his voice made it as soft as lathered soap. + +I suppose the most rudimentary form of his speculation was the hens. +That was years ago. He kept them out at the back of his house,--which +itself stood up a grass plot behind and beyond the barber shop,--and +in the old days Jeff would say, with a certain note of pride in his +voice, that The Woman had sold as many as two dozen eggs in a day to +the summer visitors. + +But what with reading about Amalgamated Asbestos and Consolidated +Copper and all that, the hens began to seem pretty small business, +and, in any case, the idea of two dozen eggs at a cent apiece almost +makes one blush. I suppose a good many of us have felt just as Jeff +did about our poor little earnings. Anyway, I remember Jeff telling +me one day that he could take the whole lot of the hens and sell them +off and crack the money into Chicago wheat on margin and turn it over +in twenty-four hours. He did it too. Only somehow when it was turned +over it came upside down on top of the hens. + +After that the hen house stood empty and The Woman had to throw away +chicken feed every day, at a dead loss of perhaps a shave and a half. +But it made no difference to Jeff, for his mind had floated away +already on the possibilities of what he called "displacement" mining +on the Yukon. + +So you can understand that when the mining boom struck Mariposa, +Jefferson Thorpe was in it right from the very start. Why, no wonder; +it seemed like the finger of Providence. Here was this great silver +country spread out to north of us, where people had thought there was +only a wilderness. And right at our very doors! You could see, as I +saw, the night express going north every evening; for all one knew +Rockefeller or Carnegie or anyone might be on it! Here was the +wealth of Calcutta, as the Mariposa Newspacket put it, poured out at +our very feet. + +So no wonder the town went wild! All day in the street you could hear +men talking of veins, and smelters and dips and deposits and +faults,--the town hummed with it like a geology class on examination +day. And there were men about the hotels with mining outfits and +theodolites and dunnage bags, and at Smith's bar they would hand +chunks of rock up and down, some of which would run as high as ten +drinks to the pound. + +The fever just caught the town and ran through it! Within a fortnight +they put a partition down Robertson's Coal and Wood Office and opened +the Mariposa Mining Exchange, and just about every man on the Main +Street started buying scrip. Then presently young Fizzlechip, who had +been teller in Mullins's Bank and that everybody had thought a +worthless jackass before, came back from the Cobalt country with a +fortune, and loafed round in the Mariposa House in English khaki and +a horizontal hat, drunk all the time, and everybody holding him up as +an example of what it was possible to do if you tried. + +They all went in. Jim Eliot mortgaged the inside of the drug store +and jammed it into Twin Tamagami. Pete Glover at the hardware store +bought Nippewa stock at thirteen cents and sold it to his brother at +seventeen and bought it back in less than a week at nineteen. They +didn't care! They took a chance. Judge Pepperleigh put the rest of +his wife's money into Temiskaming Common, and Lawyer Macartney got +the fever, too, and put every cent that his sister possessed into +Tulip Preferred. + +And even when young Fizzlechip shot himself in the back room of the +Mariposa House, Mr. Gingham buried him in a casket with silver +handles and it was felt that there was a Monte Carlo touch about the +whole thing. + +They all went in--or all except Mr. Smith. You see, Mr. Smith had +come down from there, and he knew all about rocks and mining and +canoes and the north country. He knew what it was to eat flour-baked +dampers under the lee side of a canoe propped among the underbrush, +and to drink the last drop of whiskey within fifty miles. Mr. Smith +had mighty little use for the north. But what he did do, was to buy +up enough early potatoes to send fifteen carload lots into Cobalt at +a profit of five dollars a bag. + +Mr. Smith, I say, hung back. But Jeff Thorpe was in the mining boom +right from the start. He bought in on the Nippewa mine even before +the interim prospectus was out. He took a "block" of 100 shares of +Abbitibbi Development at fourteen cents, and he and Johnson, the +livery stablekeeper next door, formed a syndicate and got a thousand +shares of Metagami Lake at 3 1/4 cents and then "unloaded" them on +one of the sausage men at Netley's butcher shop at a clear cent per +cent advance. + +Jeff would open the little drawer below the mirror in the barber shop +and show you all kinds and sorts of Cobalt country mining +certificates,--blue ones, pink ones, green ones, with outlandish and +fascinating names on them that ran clear from the Mattawa to the +Hudson Bay. + +And right from the start he was confident of winning. "There ain't +no difficulty to it," he said, "there's lots of silver up there in +that country and if you buy some here and some there you can't fail +to come out somewhere. I don't say," he used to continue, with the +scissors open and ready to cut, "that some of the greenhorns won't +get bit. But if a feller knows the country and keeps his head level, +he can't lose." + +Jefferson had looked at so many prospectuses and so many pictures of +mines and pine trees and smelters, that I think he'd forgotten that +he'd never been in the country. Anyway, what's two hundred miles! + +To an onlooker it certainly didn't seem so simple. I never knew the +meanness, the trickery, of the mining business, the sheer obstinate +determination of the bigger capitalists not to make money when they +might, till I heard the accounts of Jeff's different mines. Take the +case of Corona Jewel. There was a good mine, simply going to ruin for +lack of common sense. + +"She ain't been developed," Jeff would say. "There's silver enough in +her so you could dig it out with a shovel. She's full of it. But they +won't get at her and work her." + +Then he'd take a look at the pink and blue certificates of the Corona +Jewel and slam the drawer on them in disgust. Worse than that was +the Silent Pine,--a clear case of stupid incompetence! Utter lack of +engineering skill was all that was keeping the Silent Pine from +making a fortune for its holders. + +"The only trouble with that mine," said Jeff, "is they won't go deep +enough. They followed the vein down to where it kind o' thinned out +and then they quit. If they'd just go right into her good, they'd get +it again. She's down there all right." + +But perhaps the meanest case of all was the Northern Star. That +always seemed to me, every time I heard of it, a straight case for +the criminal law. The thing was so evidently a conspiracy. + +"I bought her," said Jeff, "at thirty-two, and she stayed right there +tight, like she was stuck. Then a bunch of these fellers in the city +started to drive her down and they got her pushed down to +twenty-four, and I held on to her and they shoved her down to +twenty-one. This morning they've got her down to sixteen, but I don't +mean to let go. No, sir." + +In another fortnight they shoved her, the same unscrupulous crowd, +down to nine cents, and Jefferson still held on. "They're working +her down," he admitted, "but I'm holding her." + +No conflict between vice and virtue was ever grimmer. + +"She's at six," said Jeff, "but I've got her. They can't squeeze me." + +A few days after that, the same criminal gang had her down further +than ever. + +"They've got her down to three cents," said Jeff, "but I'm with her. +Yes, sir, they think they can shove her clean off the market, but +they can't do it. I've boughten in Johnson's shares, and the whole of +Netley's, and I'll stay with her till she breaks." + +So they shoved and pushed and clawed her down--that unseen nefarious +crowd in the city--and Jeff held on to her and they writhed and +twisted at his grip, and then-- + +And then--well, that's just the queer thing about the mining +business. Why, sudden as a flash of lightning, it seemed, the news +came over the wire to the Mariposa Newspacket, that they had struck a +vein of silver in the Northern Star as thick as a sidewalk, and that +the stock had jumped to seventeen dollars a share, and even at that +you couldn't get it! And Jeff stood there flushed and half-staggered +against the mirror of the little shop, with a bunch of mining scrip +in his hand that was worth forty thousand dollars! + +Excitement! It was all over the town in a minutes. They ran off a +news extra at the Mariposa Newspacket, and in less than no time there +wasn't standing room in the barber shop, and over in Smith's Hotel +they had three extra barkeepers working on the lager beer pumps. + +They were selling mining shares on the Main Street in Mariposa that +afternoon and people were just clutching for them. Then at night +there was a big oyster supper in Smith's caff, with speeches, and the +Mariposa band outside. + +And the queer thing was that the very next afternoon was the funeral +of young Fizzlechip, and Dean Drone had to change the whole text of +his Sunday sermon at two days' notice for fear of offending public +sentiment. + +But I think what Jeff liked best of it all was the sort of public +recognition that it meant. He'd stand there in the shop, hardly +bothering to shave, and explain to the men in the arm-chairs how he +held her, and they shoved her, and he clung to her, and what he'd +said to himself--a perfect Iliad--while he was clinging to her. + +The whole thing was in the city papers a few days after with a +photograph of Jeff, taken specially at Ed Moore's studio (upstairs +over Netley's). It showed Jeff sitting among palm trees, as all +mining men do, with one hand on his knee, and a dog, one of those +regular mining dogs, at his feet, and a look of piercing intelligence +in his face that would easily account for forty thousand dollars. + +I say that the recognition meant a lot to Jeff for its own sake. But +no doubt the fortune meant quite a bit to him too on account of Myra. + +Did I mention Myra, Jeff's daughter? Perhaps not. That's the trouble +with the people in Mariposa; they're all so separate and so +different--not a bit like the people in the cities--that unless you +hear about them separately and one by one you can't for a moment +understand what they're like. + +Myra had golden hair and a Greek face and would come bursting through +the barber shop in a hat at least six inches wider than what they +wear in Paris. As you saw her swinging up the street to the Telephone +Exchange in a suit that was straight out of the Delineator and brown +American boots, there was style written all over her,--the kind of +thing that Mariposa recognised and did homage to. And to see her in +the Exchange,--she was one of the four girls that I spoke of,--on her +high stool with a steel cap on,--jabbing the connecting plugs in and +out as if electricity cost nothing--well, all I mean is that you +could understand why it was that the commercial travellers would +stand round in the Exchange calling up all sorts of impossible +villages, and waiting about so pleasant and genial!--it made one +realize how naturally good-tempered men are. And then when Myra would +go off duty and Miss Cleghorn, who was sallow, would come on, the +commercial men would be off again like autumn leaves. + +It just shows the difference between people. There was Myra who +treated lovers like dogs and would slap them across the face with a +banana skin to show her utter independence. And there was Miss +Cleghorn, who was sallow, and who bought a forty cent Ancient History +to improve herself: and yet if she'd hit any man in Mariposa with a +banana skin, he'd have had her arrested for assault. + +Mind you, I don't mean that Myra was merely flippant and worthless. +Not at all. She was a girl with any amount of talent. You should have +heard her recite "The Raven," at the Methodist Social! Simply genius! +And when she acted Portia in the Trial Scene of the Merchant of +Venice at the High School concert, everybody in Mariposa admitted +that you couldn't have told it from the original. + +So, of course, as soon as Jeff made the fortune, Myra had her +resignation in next morning and everybody knew that she was to go to +a dramatic school for three months in the fall and become a leading +actress. + +But, as I said, the public recognition counted a lot for Jeff. The +moment you begin to get that sort of thing it comes in quickly +enough. Brains, you know, are recognized right away. That was why, of +course, within a week from this Jeff received the first big packet of +stuff from the Cuban Land Development Company, with coloured pictures +of Cuba, and fields of bananas, and haciendas and insurrectos with +machetes and Heaven knows what. They heard of him, somehow,--it +wasn't for a modest man like Jefferson to say how. After all, the +capitalists of the world are just one and the same crowd. If you're +in it, you're in it, that's all! Jeff realized why it is that of +course men like Carnegie or Rockefeller and Morgan all know one +another. They have to. + +For all I know, this Cuban stuff may have been sent from Morgan +himself. Some of the people in Mariposa said yes, others said no. +There was no certainty. + +Anyway, they were fair and straight, this Cuban crowd that wrote to +Jeff. They offered him to come right in and be one of themselves. If +a man's got the brains, you may as well recognize it straight away. +Just as well write him to be a director now as wait and hesitate till +he forces his way into it. + +Anyhow, they didn't hesitate, these Cuban people that wrote to Jeff +from Cuba--or from a post-office box in New York--it's all the same +thing, because Cuba being so near to New York the mail is all +distributed from there. I suppose in some financial circles they +might have been slower, wanted guarantees of some sort, and so on, +but these Cubans, you know, have got a sort of Spanish warmth of +heart that you don't see in business men in America, and that touches +you. No, they asked no guarantee. Just send the money whether by +express order or by bank draft or cheque, they left that entirely to +oneself, as a matter between Cuban gentlemen. + +And they were quite frank about their enterprise--bananas and tobacco +in the plantation district reclaimed from the insurrectos. You could +see it all there in the pictures--tobacco plants and the +insurrectos--everything. They made no rash promises, just admitted +straight out that the enterprise might realise 400 per cent. or might +conceivably make less. There was no hint of more. + +So within a month, everybody in Mariposa knew that Jeff Thorpe was +"in Cuban lands" and would probably clean up half a million by New +Year's. You couldn't have failed to know it. All round the little +shop there were pictures of banana groves and the harbour of Habana, +and Cubans in white suits and scarlet sashes, smoking cigarettes in +the sun and too ignorant to know that you can make four hundred per +cent. by planting a banana tree. + +I liked it about Jeff that he didn't stop shaving. He went on just +the same. Even when Johnson, the livery stable man, came in with five +hundred dollars and asked him to see if the Cuban Board of Directors +would let him put it in, Jeff laid it in the drawer and then shaved +him for five cents, in the same old way. Of course, he must have felt +proud when, a few days later, he got a letter from the Cuban people, +from New York, accepting the money straight off without a single +question, and without knowing anything more of Johnson except that he +was a friend of Jeff's. They wrote most handsomely. Any friends of +Jeff's were friends of Cuba. All money they might send would be +treated just as Jeff's would be treated. + +One reason, perhaps, why Jeff didn't give up shaving was because it +allowed him to talk about Cuba. You see, everybody knew in Mariposa +that Jeff Thorpe had sold out of Cobalts and had gone into Cuban +Renovated Lands--and that spread round him a kind of halo of wealth +and mystery and outlandishness--oh, something Spanish. Perhaps you've +felt it about people that you know. Anyhow, they asked him about the +climate, and yellow fever and what the negroes were like and all that +sort of thing. + +"This Cubey, it appears is an island," Jeff would explain. Of +course, everybody knows how easily islands lend themselves to making +money,--"and for fruit, they say it comes up so fast you can't stop +it." And then he would pass into details about the Hash-enders and +the resurrectos and technical things like that till it was thought a +wonder how he could know it. Still, it was realized that a man with +money has got to know these things. Look at Morgan and Rockefeller +and all the men that make a pile. They know just as much as Jeff did +about the countries where they make it. It stands to reason. + +Did I say that Jeff shaved in the same old way? Not quite. There was +something even dreamier about it now, and a sort of new element in +the way Jeff fell out of his monotone into lapses of thought that I, +for one, misunderstood. I thought that perhaps getting so much +money,--well, you know the way it acts on people in the larger +cities. It seemed to spoil one's idea of Jeff that copper and +asbestos and banana lands should form the goal of his thought when, +if he knew it, the little shop and the sunlight of Mariposa was so +much better. + +In fact, I had perhaps borne him a grudge for what seemed to me his +perpetual interest in the great capitalists. He always had some item +out of the paper about them. + +"I see where this here Carnegie has give fifty thousand dollars for +one of them observatories," he would say. + +And another day he would pause in the course of shaving, and almost +whisper: "Did you ever _see_ this Rockefeller?" + +It was only by a sort of accident that I came to know that there was +another side to Jefferson's speculation that no one in Mariposa ever +knew, or will ever know now. + +I knew it because I went in to see Jeff in his house one night. The +house,--I think I said it,--stood out behind the barber shop. You +went out of the back door of the shop, and through a grass plot with +petunias beside it, and the house stood at the end. You could see the +light of the lamp behind the blind, and through the screen door as +you came along. And it was here that Jefferson used to sit in the +evenings when the shop got empty. + +There was a round table that The Woman used to lay for supper, and +after supper there used to be a chequered cloth on it and a lamp with +a shade. And beside it Jeff would sit, with his spectacles on and the +paper spread out, reading about Carnegie and Rockefeller. Near him, +but away from the table, was The Woman doing needlework, and Myra, +when she wasn't working in the Telephone Exchange, was there too with +her elbows on the table reading Marie Corelli--only now, of course, +after the fortune, she was reading the prospectuses of Dramatic +Schools. + +So this night,--I don't know just what it was in the paper that +caused it,--Jeff laid down what he was reading and started to talk +about Carnegie. + +"This Carnegie, I bet you, would be worth," said Jeff, closing up his +eyes in calculation, "as much as perhaps two million dollars, if you +was to sell him up. And this Rockefeller and this Morgan, either of +them, to sell them up clean, would be worth another couple of million--" + +I may say in parentheses that it was a favourite method in Mariposa +if you wanted to get at the real worth of a man, to imagine him clean +sold up, put up for auction, as it were. It was the only way to test +him. + +"And now look at 'em," Jeff went on. "They make their money and what +do they do with it? They give it away. And who do they give it to? +Why, to those as don't want it, every time. They give it to these +professors and to this research and that, and do the poor get any of +it? Not a cent and never will." + +"I tell you, boys," continued Jeff (there were no boys present, but +in Mariposa all really important speeches are addressed to an +imaginary audience of boys)--"I tell you, if I was to make a million +out of this Cubey, I'd give it straight to the poor, yes, sir--divide +it up into a hundred lots of a thousand dollars each and give it to +the people that hadn't nothing." + +So always after that I knew just what those bananas were being grown +for. + +Indeed, after that, though Jefferson never spoke of his intentions +directly, he said a number of things that seemed to bear on them. He +asked me, for instance, one day, how many blind people it would take +to fill one of these blind homes and how a feller could get ahold of +them. And at another time he asked whether if a feller advertised for +some of these incurables a feller could get enough of them to make a +showing. I know for a fact that he got Nivens, the lawyer, to draw up +a document that was to give an acre of banana land in Cuba to every +idiot in Missinaba county. + +But still,--what's the use of talking of what Jeff meant to do? +Nobody knows or cares about it now. + +The end of it was bound to come. Even in Mariposa some of the people +must have thought so. Else how was it that Henry Mullins made such a +fuss about selling a draft for forty thousand on New York? And why +was it that Mr. Smith wouldn't pay Billy, the desk clerk, his back +wages when he wanted to put it into Cuba? + +Oh yes; some of them must have seen it. And yet when it came it +seemed so quiet,--ever so quiet,--not a bit like the Northern Star +mine and the oyster supper and the Mariposa band. It is strange how +quiet these things look, the other way round. + +You remember the Cuban Land frauds in New York and Porforio Gomez +shooting the detective, and him and Maximo Morez getting clear away +with two hundred thousand? No, of course you don't; why, even in the +city papers it only filled an inch or two of type, and anyway the +names were hard to remember. That was Jeff's money--part of it. +Mullins got the telegram, from a broker or someone, and he showed it +to Jeff just as he was going up the street with an estate agent to +look at a big empty lot on the hill behind the town--the very place +for these incurables. + +And Jeff went back to the shop so quiet--have you ever seen an animal +that is stricken through, how quiet it seems to move? + +Well, that's how he walked. + +And since that, though it's quite a little while ago, the shop's open +till eleven every night now, and Jeff is shaving away to pay back +that five hundred that Johnson, the livery man, sent to the Cubans, +and-- + +Pathetic? tut! tut! You don't know Mariposa. Jeff has to work pretty +late, but that's nothing--nothing at all, if you've worked hard all +your lifetime. And Myra is back at the Telephone Exchange--they were +glad enough to get her, and she says now that if there's one thing +she hates, it's the stage, and she can't see how the actresses put up +with it. + +Anyway, things are not so bad. You see it was just at this time that +Mr. Smith's caff opened, and Mr. Smith came to Jeff's Woman and said +he wanted seven dozen eggs a day, and wanted them handy, and so the +hens are back, and more of them, and they exult so every morning over +the eggs they lay that if you wanted to talk of Rockefeller in the +barber shop you couldn't hear his name for the cackling. + + + +THREE + +The Marine Excursions of the Knights of Pythias + +Half-past six on a July morning! The Mariposa Belle is at the wharf, +decked in flags, with steam up ready to start. + +Excursion day! + +Half past six on a July morning, and Lake Wissanotti lying in the sun +as calm as glass. The opal colours of the morning light are shot from +the surface of the water. + +Out on the lake the last thin threads of the mist are clearing away +like flecks of cotton wool. + +The long call of the loon echoes over the lake. The air is cool and +fresh. There is in it all the new life of the land of the silent pine +and the moving waters. Lake Wissanotti in the morning sunlight! Don't +talk to me of the Italian lakes, or the Tyrol or the Swiss Alps. Take +them away. Move them somewhere else. I don't want them. + +Excursion Day, at half past six of a summer morning! With the boat +all decked in flags and all the people in Mariposa on the wharf, and +the band in peaked caps with big cornets tied to their bodies ready +to play at any minute! I say! Don't tell me about the Carnival of +Venice and the Delhi Durbar. Don't! I wouldn't look at them. I'd shut +my eyes! For light and colour give me every time an excursion out of +Mariposa down the lake to the Indian's Island out of sight in the +morning mist. Talk of your Papal Zouaves and your Buckingham Palace +Guard! I want to see the Mariposa band in uniform and the Mariposa +Knights of Pythias with their aprons and their insignia and their +picnic baskets and their five-cent cigars! + +Half past six in the morning, and all the crowd on the wharf and the +boat due to leave in half an hour. Notice it!--in half an hour. +Already she's whistled twice (at six, and at six fifteen), and at any +minute now, Christie Johnson will step into the pilot house and pull +the string for the warning whistle that the boat will leave in half +an hour. So keep ready. Don't think of running back to Smith's Hotel +for the sandwiches. Don't be fool enough to try to go up to the Greek +Store, next to Netley's, and buy fruit. You'll be left behind for +sure if you do. Never mind the sandwiches and the fruit! Anyway, +here comes Mr. Smith himself with a huge basket of provender that +would feed a factory. There must be sandwiches in that. I think I can +hear them clinking. And behind Mr. Smith is the German waiter from +the caff with another basket--indubitably lager beer; and behind him, +the bar-tender of the hotel, carrying nothing, as far as one can see. +But of course if you know Mariposa you will understand that why he +looks so nonchalant and empty-handed is because he has two bottles of +rye whiskey under his linen duster. You know, I think, the peculiar +walk of a man with two bottles of whiskey in the inside pockets of a +linen coat. In Mariposa, you see, to bring beer to an excursion is +quite in keeping with public opinion. But, whiskey,--well, one has to +be a little careful. + +Do I say that Mr. Smith is here? Why, everybody's here. There's +Hussell the editor of the Newspacket, wearing a blue ribbon on his +coat, for the Mariposa Knights of Pythias are, by their constitution, +dedicated to temperance; and there's Henry Mullins, the manager of +the Exchange Bank, also a Knight of Pythias, with a small flask of +Pogram's Special in his hip pocket as a sort of amendment to the +constitution. And there's Dean Drone, the Chaplain of the Order, with +a fishing-rod (you never saw such green bass as lie among the rocks +at Indian's Island), and with a trolling line in case of maskinonge, +and a landing net in case of pickerel, and with his eldest daughter, +Lilian Drone, in case of young men. There never was such a fisherman +as the Rev. Rupert Drone. + + +Perhaps I ought to explain that when I speak of the excursion as +being of the Knights of Pythias, the thing must not be understood in +any narrow sense. In Mariposa practically everybody belongs to the +Knights of Pythias just as they do to everything else. That's the +great thing about the town and that's what makes it so different from +the city. Everybody is in everything. + +You should see them on the seventeenth of March, for example, when +everybody wears a green ribbon and they're all laughing and +glad,--you know what the Celtic nature is,--and talking about Home +Rule. + +On St. Andrew's Day every man in town wears a thistle and shakes +hands with everybody else, and you see the fine old Scotch honesty +beaming out of their eyes. + +And on St. George's Day!--well, there's no heartiness like the good +old English spirit, after all; why shouldn't a man feel glad that +he's an Englishman? + +Then on the Fourth of July there are stars and stripes flying over +half the stores in town, and suddenly all the men are seen to smoke +cigars, and to know all about Roosevelt and Bryan and the Philippine +Islands. Then you learn for the first time that Jeff Thorpe's people +came from Massachusetts and that his uncle fought at Bunker Hill (it +must have been Bunker Hill,--anyway Jefferson will swear it was in +Dakota all right enough); and you find that George Duff has a married +sister in Rochester and that her husband is all right; in fact, +George was down there as recently as eight years ago. Oh, it's the +most American town imaginable is Mariposa,--on the fourth of July. + +But wait, just wait, if you feel anxious about the solidity of the +British connection, till the twelfth of the month, when everybody is +wearing an orange streamer in his coat and the Orangemen (every man +in town) walk in the big procession. Allegiance! Well, perhaps you +remember the address they gave to the Prince of Wales on the platform +of the Mariposa station as he went through on his tour to the west. I +think that pretty well settled that question. So you will easily +understand that of course everybody belongs to the Knights of Pythias +and the Masons and Oddfellows, just as they all belong to the Snow +Shoe Club and the Girls' Friendly Society. + +And meanwhile the whistle of the steamer has blown again for a +quarter to seven:--loud and long this time, for any one not here now +is late for certain; unless he should happen to come down in the last +fifteen minutes. + +What a crowd upon the wharf and how they pile on to the steamer! It's +a wonder that the boat can hold them all. But that's just the +marvellous thing about the Mariposa Belle. + +I don't know,--I have never known,--where the steamers like the +Mariposa Belle come from. Whether they are built by Harland and Wolff +of Belfast, or whether, on the other hand, they are not built by +Harland and Wolff of Belfast, is more than one would like to say +offhand. + +The Mariposa Belle always seems to me to have some of those strange +properties that distinguish Mariposa itself. I mean, her size seems +to vary so. If you see her there in the winter, frozen in the ice +beside the wharf with a snowdrift against the windows of the pilot +house, she looks a pathetic little thing the size of a butternut. +But in the summer time, especially after you've been in Mariposa for +a month or two, and have paddled alongside of her in a canoe, she +gets larger and taller, and with a great sweep of black sides, till +you see no difference between the Mariposa Belle and the Lusitania. +Each one is a big steamer and that's all you can say. + +Nor do her measurements help you much. She draws about eighteen +inches forward, and more than that,--at least half an inch more, +astern, and when she's loaded down with an excursion crowd she draws +a good two inches more. And above the water,--why, look at all the +decks on her! There's the deck you walk on to, from the wharf, all +shut in, with windows along it, and the after cabin with the long +table, and above that the deck with all the chairs piled upon it, and +the deck in front where the band stand round in a circle, and the +pilot house is higher than that, and above the pilot house is the +board with the gold name and the flag pole and the steel ropes and +the flags; and fixed in somewhere on the different levels is the +lunch counter where they sell the sandwiches, and the engine room, +and down below the deck level, beneath the water line, is the place +where the crew sleep. What with steps and stairs and passages and +piles of cordwood for the engine,--oh no, I guess Harland and Wolff +didn't build her. They couldn't have. + +Yet even with a huge boat like the Mariposa Belle, it would be +impossible for her to carry all of the crowd that you see in the boat +and on the wharf. In reality, the crowd is made up of two +classes,--all of the people in Mariposa who are going on the +excursion and all those who are not. Some come for the one reason and +some for the other. + +The two tellers of the Exchange Bank are both there standing side by +side. But one of them,--the one with the cameo pin and the long face +like a horse,--is going, and the other,--with the other cameo pin and +the face like another horse,--is not. In the same way, Hussell of the +Newspacket is going, but his brother, beside him, isn't. Lilian Drone +is going, but her sister can't; and so on all through the crowd. + + +And to think that things should look like that on the morning of a +steamboat accident. + +How strange life is! + +To think of all these people so eager and anxious to catch the +steamer, and some of them running to catch it, and so fearful that +they might miss it,--the morning of a steamboat accident. And the +captain blowing his whistle, and warning them so severely that he +would leave them behind,--leave them out of the accident! And +everybody crowding so eagerly to be in the accident. + +Perhaps life is like that all through. + +Strangest of all to think, in a case like this, of the people who +were left behind, or in some way or other prevented from going, and +always afterwards told of how they had escaped being on board the +Mariposa Belle that day! + +Some of the instances were certainly extraordinary. Nivens, the +lawyer, escaped from being there merely by the fact that he was away +in the city. + +Towers, the tailor, only escaped owing to the fact that, not +intending to go on the excursion he had stayed in bed till eight +o'clock and so had not gone. He narrated afterwards that waking up +that morning at half-past five, he had thought of the excursion and +for some unaccountable reason had felt glad that he was not going. + + +The case of Yodel, the auctioneer, was even more inscrutable. He had +been to the Oddfellows' excursion on the train the week before and to +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 +could have knocked him down where he stood. But no one had. Not even +when he got halfway down,--on his knees, and it would have been +easier still to knock him down or kick him. People do miss a lot of +chances. + +Still, as I say, neither Yodel nor Morison nor anyone thought about +there being an accident until just after sundown when they-- + +Well, have you ever heard the long booming whistle of a steamboat two +miles out on the lake in the dusk, and while you listen and count and +wonder, seen the crimson rockets going up against the sky and then +heard the fire bell ringing right there beside you in the town, and +seen the people running to the town wharf? + +That's what the people of Mariposa saw and felt that summer evening +as they watched the Mackinaw life-boat go plunging out into the lake +with seven sweeps to a side and the foam clear to the gunwale with +the lifting stroke of fourteen men! + +But, dear me, I am afraid that this is no way to tell a story. I +suppose the true art would have been to have said nothing about the +accident till it happened. But when you write about Mariposa, or hear +of it, if you know the place, it's all so vivid and real that a thing +like the contrast between the excursion crowd in the morning and the +scene at night leaps into your mind and you must think of it. + + +But never mind about the accident,--let us turn back again to the +morning. + +The boat was due to leave at seven. There was no doubt about the +hour,--not only seven, but seven sharp. The notice in the Newspacket +said: "The boat will leave sharp at seven;" and the advertising +posters on the telegraph poles on Missinaba Street that began "Ho, +for Indian's Island!" ended up with the words: "Boat leaves at seven +sharp." There was a big notice on the wharf that said: "Boat leaves +sharp on time." + +So at seven, right on the hour, the whistle blew loud and long, and +then at seven fifteen three short peremptory blasts, and at seven +thirty one quick angry call,--just one,--and very soon after that +they cast off the last of the ropes and the Mariposa Belle sailed off +in her cloud of flags, and the band of the Knights of Pythias, timing +it to a nicety, broke into the "Maple Leaf for Ever!" + +I suppose that all excursions when they start are much the same. +Anyway, on the Mariposa Belle everybody went running up and down all +over the boat with deck chairs and camp stools and baskets, and found +places, splendid places to sit, and then got scared that there might +be better ones and chased off again. People hunted for places out of +the sun and when they got them swore that they weren't going to +freeze to please anybody; and the people in the sun said that they +hadn't paid fifty cents to be roasted. Others said that they hadn't +paid fifty cents to get covered with cinders, and there were still +others who hadn't paid fifty cents to get shaken to death with the +propeller. + +Still, it was all right presently. The people seemed to get sorted +out into the places on the boat where they belonged. The women, the +older ones, all gravitated into the cabin on the lower deck and by +getting round the table with needlework, and with all the windows +shut, they soon had it, as they said themselves, just like being at +home. + +All the young boys and the toughs and the men in the band got down +on the lower deck forward, where the boat was dirtiest and where the +anchor was and the coils of rope. + +And upstairs on the after deck there were Lilian Drone and +Miss Lawson, the high school teacher, with a book of German +poetry,--Gothey I think it was,--and the bank teller and the +younger men. + +In the centre, standing beside the rail, were Dean Drone and Dr. +Gallagher, looking through binocular glasses at the shore. + +Up in front on the little deck forward of the pilot house was a group +of the older men, Mullins and Duff and Mr. Smith in a deck chair, +and beside him Mr. Golgotha Gingham, the undertaker of Mariposa, on a +stool. It was part of Mr. Gingham's principles to take in an outing +of this sort, a business matter, more or less,--for you never know +what may happen at these water parties. At any rate, he was there in +a neat suit of black, not, of course, his heavier or professional +suit, but a soft clinging effect as of burnt paper that combined +gaiety and decorum to a nicety. + + +"Yes," said Mr. Gingham, waving his black glove in a general way +towards the shore, "I know the lake well, very well. I've been pretty +much all over it in my time." + +"Canoeing?" asked somebody. + +"No," said Mr. Gingham, "not in a canoe." There seemed a peculiar and +quiet meaning in his tone. + +"Sailing, I suppose," said somebody else. + +"No," said Mr. Gingham. "I don't understand it." + +"I never knowed that you went on to the water at all, Gol," said Mr. +Smith, breaking in. + +"Ah, not now," explained Mr. Gingham; "it was years ago, the first +summer I came to Mariposa. I was on the water practically all day. +Nothing like it to give a man an appetite and keep him in shape." + +"Was you camping?" asked Mr. Smith. + +"We camped at night," assented the undertaker, "but we put in +practically the whole day on the water. You see we were after a party +that had come up here from the city on his vacation and gone out in a +sailing canoe. We were dragging. We were up every morning at sunrise, +lit a fire on the beach and cooked breakfast, and then we'd light our +pipes and be off with the net for a whole day. It's a great life," +concluded Mr. Gingham wistfully. + +"Did you get him?" asked two or three together. + +There was a pause before Mr. Gingham answered. + +"We did," he said,--"down in the reeds past Horseshoe Point. But it +was no use. He turned blue on me right away." + +After which Mr. Gingham fell into such a deep reverie that the boat +had steamed another half mile down the lake before anybody broke the +silence again. + +Talk of this sort,--and after all what more suitable for a day on the +water?--beguiled the way. + + +Down the lake, mile by mile over the calm water, steamed the Mariposa +Belle. They passed Poplar Point where the high sand-banks are with +all the swallows' nests in them, and Dean Drone and Dr. Gallagher +looked at them alternately through the binocular glasses, and it was +wonderful how plainly one could see the swallows and the banks and +the shrubs,--just as plainly as with the naked eye. + +And a little further down they passed the Shingle Beach, and Dr. +Gallagher, who knew Canadian history, said to Dean Drone that it was +strange to think that Champlain had landed there with his French +explorers three hundred years ago; and Dean Drone, who didn't know +Canadian history, said it was stranger still to think that the hand +of the Almighty had piled up the hills and rocks long before that; +and Dr. Gallagher said it was wonderful how the French had found +their way through such a pathless wilderness; and Dean Drone said +that it was wonderful also to think that the Almighty had placed even +the smallest shrub in its appointed place. Dr. Gallagher said it +filled him with admiration. Dean Drone said it filled him with awe. +Dr. Gallagher said he'd been full of it ever since he was a boy; and +Dean Drone said so had he. + +Then a little further, as the Mariposa Belle steamed on down the +lake, they passed the Old Indian Portage where the great grey rocks +are; and Dr. Gallagher drew Dean Drone's attention to the place where +the narrow canoe track wound up from the shore to the woods, and Dean +Drone said he could see it perfectly well without the glasses. + +Dr. Gallagher said that it was just here that a party of five hundred +French had made their way with all their baggage and accoutrements +across the rocks of the divide and down to the Great Bay. And Dean +Drone said that it reminded him of Xenophon leading his ten thousand +Greeks over the hill passes of Armenia down to the sea. Dr. +Gallagher said the he had often wished he could have seen and spoken +to Champlain, and Dean Drone said how much he regretted to have never +known Xenophon. + +And then after that they fell to talking of relics and traces of the +past, and Dr. Gallagher said that if Dean Drone would come round to +his house some night he would show him some Indian arrow heads that +he had dug up in his garden. And Dean Drone said that if Dr. +Gallagher would come round to the rectory any afternoon he would show +him a map of Xerxes' invasion of Greece. Only he must come some time +between the Infant Class and the Mothers' Auxiliary. + +So presently they both knew that they were blocked out of one +another's houses for some time to come, and Dr. Gallagher walked +forward and told Mr. Smith, who had never studied Greek, about +Champlain crossing the rock divide. + +Mr. Smith turned his head and looked at the divide for half a second +and then said he had crossed a worse one up north back of the +Wahnipitae and that the flies were Hades,--and then went on playing +freezeout poker with the two juniors in Duff's bank. + +So Dr. Gallagher realized that that's always the way when you try to +tell people things, and that as far as gratitude and appreciation +goes one might as well never read books or travel anywhere or do +anything. + +In fact, it was at this very moment that he made up his mind to give +the arrows to the Mariposa Mechanics' Institute,--they afterwards +became, as you know, the Gallagher Collection. But, for the time +being, the doctor was sick of them and wandered off round the boat +and watched Henry Mullins showing George Duff how to make a John +Collins without lemons, and finally went and sat down among the +Mariposa band and wished that he hadn't come. + +So the boat steamed on and the sun rose higher and higher, and the +freshness of the morning changed into the full glare of noon, and +they went on to where the lake began to narrow in at its foot, just +where the Indian's Island is, all grass and trees and with a log +wharf running into the water: Below it the Lower Ossawippi runs out +of the lake, and quite near are the rapids, and you can see down +among the trees the red brick of the power house and hear the roar of +the leaping water. + +The Indian's Island itself is all covered with trees and tangled +vines, and the water about it is so still that it's all reflected +double and looks the same either way up. Then when the steamer's +whistle blows as it comes into the wharf, you hear it echo among the +trees of the island, and reverberate back from the shores of the +lake. + +The scene is all so quiet and still and unbroken, that Miss +Cleghorn,--the sallow girl in the telephone exchange, that I spoke +of--said she'd like to be buried there. But all the people were so +busy getting their baskets and gathering up their things that no one +had time to attend to it. + +I mustn't even try to describe the landing and the boat crunching +against the wooden wharf and all the people running to the same side +of the deck and Christie Johnson calling out to the crowd to keep to +the starboard and nobody being able to find it. Everyone who has been +on a Mariposa excursion knows all about that. + +Nor can I describe the day itself and the picnic under the trees. +'There were speeches afterwards, and Judge Pepperleigh gave such +offence by bringing in Conservative politics that a man called +Patriotus Canadiensis wrote and asked for some of the invaluable +space of the Mariposa Times-Herald and exposed it. + +I should say that there were races too, on the grass on the open side +of the island, graded mostly according to ages, races for boys under +thirteen and girls over nineteen and all that sort of thing. Sports +are generally conducted on that plan in Mariposa. It is realized that +a woman of sixty has an unfair advantage over a mere child. + +Dean Drone managed the races and decided the ages and gave out the +prizes; the Wesleyan minister helped, and he and the young student, +who was relieving in the Presbyterian Church, held the string at the +winning point. + +They had to get mostly clergymen for the races because all the men +had wandered off, somehow, to where they were drinking lager beer out +of two kegs stuck on pine logs among the trees. + +But if you've ever been on a Mariposa excursion you know all about +these details anyway. + +So the day wore on and presently the sun came through the trees on a +slant and the steamer whistle blew with a great puff of white steam +and all the people came straggling down to the wharf and pretty soon +the Mariposa Belle had floated out on to the lake again and headed +for the town, twenty miles away. + + +I suppose you have often noticed the contrast there is between an +excursion on its way out in the morning and what it looks like on the +way home. + +In the morning everybody is so restless and animated and moves to and +fro all over the boat and asks questions. But coming home, as the +afternoon gets later and the sun sinks beyond the hills, all the +people seem to get so still and quiet and drowsy. + +So it was with the people on the Mariposa Belle. They sat there on +the benches and the deck chairs in little clusters, and listened to +the regular beat of the propeller and almost dozed off asleep as they +sat. Then when the sun set and the dusk drew on, it grew almost dark +on the deck and so still that you could hardly tell there was anyone +on board. + +And if you had looked at the steamer from the shore or from one of +the islands, you'd have seen the row of lights from the cabin windows +shining on the water and the red glare of the burning hemlock from +the funnel, and you'd have heard the soft thud of the propeller miles +away over the lake. + +Now and then, too, you could have heard them singing on the +steamer,--the voices of the girls and the men blended into +unison by the distance, rising and falling in long-drawn melody: +"O--Can-a-da--O--Can-a-da." + +You may talk as you will about the intoning choirs of your European +cathedrals, but the sound of "O--Can-a-da," borne across the waters +of a silent lake at evening is good enough for those of us who know +Mariposa. + +I think that it was just as they were singing like this: +"O--Can-a-da," that word went round that the boat was sinking. + +If you have ever been in any sudden emergency on the water, you will +understand the strange psychology of it,--the way in which what is +happening seems to become known all in a moment without a word being +said. The news is transmitted from one to the other by some +mysterious process. + +At any rate, on the Mariposa Belle first one and then the other heard +that the steamer was sinking. As far as I could ever learn the first +of it was that George Duff, the bank manager, came very quietly to +Dr. Gallagher and asked him if he thought that the boat was sinking. +The doctor said no, that he had thought so earlier in the day but +that he didn't now think that she was. + +After that Duff, according to his own account, had said to Macartney, +the lawyer, that the boat was sinking, and Macartney said that he +doubted it very much. + +Then somebody came to Judge Pepperleigh and woke him up and said that +there was six inches of water in the steamer and that she was +sinking. And Pepperleigh said it was perfect scandal and passed the +news on to his wife and she said that they had no business to allow +it and that if the steamer sank that was the last excursion she'd go +on. + +So the news went all round the boat and everywhere the people +gathered in groups and talked about it in the angry and excited way +that people have when a steamer is sinking on one of the lakes like +Lake Wissanotti. + +Dean Drone, of course, and some others were quieter about it, and +said that one must make allowances and that naturally there were two +sides to everything. But most of them wouldn't listen to reason at +all. I think, perhaps, that some of them were frightened. You see the +last time but one that the steamer had sunk, there had been a man +drowned and it made them nervous. + +What? Hadn't I explained about the depth of Lake Wissanotti? I had +taken it for granted that you knew; and in any case parts of it are +deep enough, though I don't suppose in this stretch of it from the +big reed beds up to within a mile of the town wharf, you could find +six feet of water in it if you tried. Oh, pshaw! I was not talking +about a steamer sinking in the ocean and carrying down its screaming +crowds of people into the hideous depths of green water. Oh, dear me +no! That kind of thing never happens on Lake Wissanotti. + +But what does happen is that the Mariposa Belle sinks every now and +then, and sticks there on the bottom till they get things +straightened up. + +On the lakes round Mariposa, if a person arrives late anywhere and +explains that the steamer sank, everybody understands the situation. + +You see when Harland and Wolff built the Mariposa Belle, they left +some cracks in between the timbers that you fill up with cotton waste +every Sunday. If this is not attended to, the boat sinks. In fact, it +is part of the law of the province that all the steamers like the +Mariposa Belle must be properly corked,--I think that is the +word,--every season. There are inspectors who visit all the hotels in +the province to see that it is done. + +So you can imagine now that I've explained it a little straighter, +the indignation of the people when they knew that the boat had come +uncorked and that they might be stuck out there on a shoal or a +mud-bank half the night. + +I don't say either that there wasn't any danger; anyway, it doesn't +feel very safe when you realize that the boat is settling down with +every hundred yards that she goes, and you look over the side and see +only the black water in the gathering night. + +Safe! I'm not sure now that I come to think of it that it isn't worse +than sinking in the Atlantic. After all, in the Atlantic there is +wireless telegraphy, and a lot of trained sailors and stewards. But +out on Lake Wissanotti,--far out, so that you can only just see the +lights of the town away off to the south,--when the propeller comes +to a stop,--and you can hear the hiss of steam as they start to rake +out the engine fires to prevent an explosion,--and when you turn from +the red glare that comes from the furnace doors as they open them, to +the black dark that is gathering over the lake,--and there's a night +wind beginning to run among the rushes,--and you see the men going +forward to the roof of the pilot house to send up the rockets to +rouse the town, safe? Safe yourself, if you like; as for me, let me +once get back into Mariposa again, under the night shadow of the +maple trees, and this shall be the last, last time I'll go on Lake +Wissanotti. + +Safe! Oh yes! Isn't it strange how safe other people's adventures +seem after they happen? But you'd have been scared, too, if you'd +been there just before the steamer sank, and seen them bringing up +all the women on to the top deck. + +I don't see how some of the people took it so calmly; how Mr. Smith, +for instance, could have gone on smoking and telling how he'd had a +steamer "sink on him" on Lake Nipissing and a still bigger one, a +side-wheeler, sink on him in Lake Abbitibbi. + +Then, quite suddenly, with a quiver, down she went. You could feel +the boat sink, sink,--down, down,--would it never get to the bottom? +The water came flush up to the lower deck, and then,--thank +heaven,--the sinking stopped and there was the Mariposa Belle safe +and tight on a reed bank. + +Really, it made one positively laugh! It seemed so queer and, anyway, +if a man has a sort of natural courage, danger makes him laugh. +Danger! pshaw! fiddlesticks! everybody scouted the idea. Why, it is +just the little things like this that give zest to a day on the +water. + +Within half a minute they were all running round looking for +sandwiches and cracking jokes and talking of making coffee over the +remains of the engine fires. + + +I don't need to tell at length how it all happened after that. + +I suppose the people on the Mariposa Belle would have had to settle +down there all night or till help came from the town, but some of the +men who had gone forward and were peering out into the dark said that +it couldn't be more than a mile across the water to Miller's Point. +You could almost see it over there to the left,--some of them, I +think, said "off on the port bow," because you know when you get +mixed up in these marine disasters, you soon catch the atmosphere of +the thing. + +So pretty soon they had the davits swung out over the side and were +lowering the old lifeboat from the top deck into the water. + +There were men leaning out over the rail of the Mariposa Belle with +lanterns that threw the light as they let her down, and the glare +fell on the water and the reeds. But when they got the boat lowered, +it looked such a frail, clumsy thing as one saw it from the rail +above, that the cry was raised: "Women and children first!" For what +was the sense, if it should turn out that the boat wouldn't even hold +women and children, of trying to jam a lot of heavy men into it? + +So they put in mostly women and children and the boat pushed out into +the darkness so freighted down it would hardly float. + +In the bow of it was the Presbyterian student who was relieving the +minister, and he called out that they were in the hands of +Providence. But he was crouched and ready to spring out of them at +the first moment. + +So the boat went and was lost in the darkness except for the lantern +in the bow that you could see bobbing on the water. Then presently it +came back and they sent another load, till pretty soon the decks +began to thin out and everybody got impatient to be gone. + +It was about the time that the third boat-load put off that Mr. Smith +took a bet with Mullins for twenty-five dollars, that he'd be home in +Mariposa before the people in the boats had walked round the shore. + +No one knew just what he meant, but pretty soon they saw Mr. Smith +disappear down below into the lowest part of the steamer with a +mallet in one hand and a big bundle of marline in the other. + +They might have wondered more about it, but it was just at this time +that they heard the shouts from the rescue boat--the big Mackinaw +lifeboat--that had put out from the town with fourteen men at the +sweeps when they saw the first rockets go up. + +I suppose there is always something inspiring about a rescue at sea, +or on the water. + +After all, the bravery of the lifeboat man is the true +bravery,--expended to save life, not to destroy it. + +Certainly they told for months after of how the rescue boat came out +to the Mariposa Belle. + +I suppose that when they put her in the water the lifeboat touched it +for the first time since the old Macdonald Government placed her on +Lake Wissanotti. + +Anyway, the water poured in at every seam. But not for a +moment,--even with two miles of water between them and the +steamer,--did the rowers pause for that. + +By the time they were half-way there the water was almost up to the +thwarts, but they drove her on. Panting and exhausted (for mind you, +if you haven't been in a fool boat like that for years, rowing takes +it out of you), the rowers stuck to their task. They threw the +ballast over and chucked into the water the heavy cork jackets and +lifebelts that encumbered their movements. There was no thought of +turning back. They were nearer to the steamer than the shore. + +"Hang to it, boys," called the crowd from the steamer's deck, and +hang they did. + +They were almost exhausted when they got them; men leaning from the +steamer threw them ropes and one by one every man was hauled aboard +just as the lifeboat sank under their feet. + +Saved! by Heaven, saved, by one of the smartest pieces of rescue work +ever seen on the lake. + +There's no use describing it; you need to see rescue work of this +kind by lifeboats to understand it. + +Nor were the lifeboat crew the only ones that distinguished +themselves. + +Boat after boat and canoe after canoe had put out from Mariposa to +the help of the steamer. They got them all. + +Pupkin, the other bank teller, with a face like a horse, who +hadn't gone on the excursion,--as soon as he knew that the boat +was signalling for help and that Miss Lawson was sending up +rockets,--rushed for a row boat, grabbed an oar (two would have +hampered him), and paddled madly out into the lake. He struck right +out into the dark with the crazy skiff almost sinking beneath his +feet. But they got him. They rescued him. They watched him, almost +dead with exhaustion, make his way to the steamer, where he was +hauled up with ropes. Saved! Saved!! + + +They might have gone on that way half the night, picking up the +rescuers, only, at the very moment when the tenth load of people left +for the shore,--just as suddenly and saucily as you please, up came +the Mariposa Belle from the mud bottom and floated. + +FLOATED? + +Why, of course she did. If you take a hundred and fifty people off a +steamer that has sunk, and if you get a man as shrewd as Mr. Smith to +plug the timber seams with mallet and marline, and if you turn ten +bandsmen of the Mariposa band on to your hand pump on the bow of the +lower decks--float? why, what else can she do? + +Then, if you stuff in hemlock into the embers of the fire that you +were raking out, till it hums and crackles under the boiler, it won't +be long before you hear the propeller thud thudding at the stern +again, and before the long roar of the steam whistle echoes over to +the town. + +And so the Mariposa Belle, with all steam up again and with the long +train of sparks careering from the funnel, is heading for the town. + +But no Christie Johnson at the wheel in the pilot house this time. + +"Smith! Get Smith!" is the cry. + +Can he take her in? Well, now! Ask a man who has had steamers sink on +him in half the lakes from Temiscaming to the Bay, if he can take her +in? Ask a man who has run a York boat down the rapids of the Moose +when the ice is moving, if he can grip the steering wheel of the +Mariposa Belle? So there she steams safe and sound to the town wharf! + +Look at the lights and the crowd! If only the federal census taker +could count us now! Hear them calling and shouting back and forward +from the deck to the shore! Listen! There is the rattle of the +shore ropes as they get them ready, and there's the Mariposa +band,--actually forming in a circle on the upper deck just as she +docks, and the leader with his baton,--one--two--ready now,-- + +"O CAN-A-DA!" + + + +FOUR + +The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone + +The Church of England in Mariposa is on a side street, where the +maple trees are thickest, a little up the hill from the heart of the +town. The trees above the church and the grass plot that was once the +cemetery, till they made the new one (the Necropolis, over the brow +of the hill), fill out the whole corner. Down behind the church, with +only the driving shed and a lane between, is the rectory. It is a +little brick house with odd angles. There is a hedge and a little +gate, and a weeping ash tree with red berries. + +At the side of the rectory, churchward, is a little grass lawn with +low hedges and at the side of that two wild plum trees, that are +practically always in white blossom. Underneath them is a rustic +table and chairs, and it is here that you may see Rural Dean Drone, +the incumbent of the Church of England Church, sitting, in the +chequered light of the plum tress that is neither sun nor shadow. +Generally you will find him reading, and when I tell you that at the +end of the grass plot where the hedge is highest there is a yellow +bee hive with seven bees that belong to Dean Drone, you will realize +that it is only fitting that the Dean is reading in the Greek. For +what better could a man be reading beneath the blossom of the plum +trees, within the very sound of the bees, than the Pastorals of +Theocritus? The light trash of modern romance might put a man to +sleep in such a spot, but with such food for reflection as +Theocritus, a man may safely close his eyes and muse on what he reads +without fear of dropping into slumber. + +Some men, I suppose, terminate their education when they leave their +college. Not so Dean Drone. I have often heard him say that if he +couldn't take a book in the Greek out on the lawn in a spare half +hour, he would feel lost. It's a certain activity of the brain that +must be stilled somehow. The Dean, too, seemed to have a native +feeling for the Greek language. I have often heard people who might +sit with him on the lawn, ask him to translate some of it. But he +always refused. One couldn't translate it, he said. It lost so much +in the translation that it was better not to try. It was far wiser +not to attempt it. If you undertook to translate it, there was +something gone, something missing immediately. I believe that many +classical scholars feel this way, and like to read the Greek just as +it is, without the hazard of trying to put it into so poor a medium +as English. So that when Dean Drone said that he simply couldn't +translate it, I believe he was perfectly sincere. + +Sometimes, indeed, he would read it aloud. That was another matter. +Whenever, for example, Dr. Gallagher--I mean, of course, old Dr. +Gallagher, not the young doctor (who was always out in the country in +the afternoon)--would come over and bring his latest Indian relics +to show to the Dean, the latter always read to him a passage or two. +As soon as the doctor laid his tomahawk on the table, the Dean would +reach for his Theocritus. I remember that on the day when Dr. +Gallagher brought over the Indian skull that they had dug out of the +railway embankment, and placed it on the rustic table, the Dean read +to him so long from Theocritus that the doctor, I truly believe, +dozed off in his chair. The Dean had to wait and fold his hands with +the book across his knee, and close his eyes till the doctor should +wake up again. And the skull was on the table between them, and from +above the plum blossoms fluttered down, till they made flakes on it +as white as Dr. Gallagher's hair. + +I don't want you to suppose that the Rev. Mr. Drone spent the +whole of his time under the trees. Not at all. In point of fact, the +rector's life was one round of activity which lie himself might +deplore but was powerless to prevent. He had hardly sat down beneath +the trees of an afternoon after his mid-day meal when there was the +Infant Class at three, and after that, with scarcely an hour between, +the Mothers' Auxiliary at five, and the next morning the Book Club, +and that evening the Bible Study Class, and the next morning the +Early Workers' Guild at eleven-thirty. The whole week was like that, +and if one found time to sit down for an hour or so to recuperate it +was the most one could do. After all, if a busy man spends the little +bit of leisure that he gets in advanced classical study, there is +surely no harm in it. I suppose, take it all in all, there wasn't a +busier man than the Rural Dean among the Anglican clergy of the +diocese. + +If the Dean ever did snatch a half-day from his incessant work, he +spent it in fishing. But not always that, for as likely as not, +instead of taking a real holiday he would put in the whole afternoon +amusing the children and the boys that he knew, by making kites and +toys and clockwork steamboats for them. + +It was fortunate for the Dean that he had the strange interest and +aptitude for mechanical advices which he possessed, or otherwise this +kind of thing would have been too cruel an imposition. But the Rev. +Mr. Drone had a curious liking for machinery. I think I never heard +him preach a better sermon than the one on Aeroplanes (Lo, what now +see you on high Jeremiah Two). + +So it was that he spent two whole days making a kite with Chinese +wings for Teddy Moore, the photographer's son, and closed down the +infant class for forty-eight hours so that Teddy Moore should not +miss the pleasure of flying it, or rather seeing it flown. It is +foolish to trust a Chinese kite to the hands of a young child. + +In the same way the Dean made a mechanical top for little Marjorie +Trewlaney, the cripple, to see spun: it would have been unwise to +allow the afflicted girl to spin it. There was no end to the things +that Mr. Drone could make, and always for the children. Even when he +was making the sand-clock for poor little Willie Yodel (who died, you +know) the Dean went right on with it and gave it to another child +with just the same pleasure. Death, you know, to the clergy is a +different thing from what it is to us. The Dean and Mr. Gingham used +often to speak of it as they walked through the long grass of the new +cemetery, the Necropolis. And when your Sunday walk is to your wife's +grave, as the Dean's was, perhaps it seems different to anybody. + +The Church of England Church, I said; stood close to the rectory, a +tall, sweeping church, and inside a great reach of polished cedar +beams that ran to the point of the roof. There used to stand on the +same spot the little stone church that all the grown-up people in +Mariposa still remember, a quaint little building in red and grey +stone. About it was the old cemetery, but that was all smoothed out +later into the grass plot round the new church, and the headstones +laid out flat, and no new graves have been put there for ever so +long. But the Mariposa children still walk round and read the +headstones lying flat in the grass and look for the old ones,-- +because some of them are ever so old--forty or fifty years back. + +Nor are you to think from all this that the Dean was not a man with +serious perplexities. You could easily convince yourself of the +contrary. For if you watched the Rev. Mr. Drone as he sat reading in +the Greek, you would notice that no very long period every passed +without his taking up a sheet or two of paper that lay between the +leaves of the Theocritus and that were covered close with figures. + +And these the Dean would lay upon the rustic table, and he would add +them up forwards and backwards, going first up the column and then +down it to see that nothing had been left out, and then down it again +to see what it was that must have been left out. + +Mathematics, you will understand, were not the Dean's forte. They +never were the forte of the men who had been trained at the little +Anglican college with the clipped hedges and the cricket ground, +where Rupert Drone had taken the gold medal in Greek fifty-two years +ago. You will see the medal at any time lying there in its open box +on the rectory table, in case of immediate need. Any of the Drone +girls, Lilian, or Jocelyn, or Theodora, would show it to you. But, as +I say, mathematics were not the rector's forte, and he blamed for it +(in a Christian spirit, you will understand) the memory of his +mathematical professor, and often he spoke with great bitterness. I +have often heard him say that in his opinion the colleges ought to +dismiss, of course in a Christian spirit, all the professors who are +not, in the most reverential sense of the term, fit for their jobs. + +No doubt many of the clergy of the diocese had suffered more or less +just as the Dean had from lack of mathematical training. But the Dean +always felt that his own case was especially to be lamented. For you +see, if a man is trying to make a model aeroplane--for a poor family +in the lower part of the town--and he is brought to a stop by the +need of reckoning the coefficient of torsion of cast-iron rods, it +shows plainly enough that the colleges are not truly filling their +divine mission. + + +But the figures that I speak of were not those of the model +aeroplane. These were far more serious. Night and day they had been +with the rector now for the best part of ten years, and they grew, if +anything, more intricate. + +If, for example, you try to reckon the debt of a church--a large +church with a great sweep of polished cedar beams inside, for the +special glorification of the All Powerful, and with imported tiles on +the roof for the greater glory of Heaven and with stained-glass +windows for the exaltation of the All Seeing--if, I say, you try to +reckon up the debt on such a church and figure out its interest and +its present worth, less a fixed annual payment, it makes a pretty +complicated sum. Then if you try to add to this the annual cost of +insurance, and deduct from it three-quarters of a stipend, year by +year, and then suddenly remember that three-quarters is too much, +because you have forgotten the boarding-school fees of the littlest +of the Drones (including French, as an extra--she must have it, all +the older girls did), you have got a sum that pretty well defies +ordinary arithmetic. The provoking part of it was that the Dean knew +perfectly well that with the help of logarithms he could have done +the thing in a moment. But at the Anglican college they had stopped +short at that very place in the book. They had simply explained that +Logos was a word and Arithmos a number, which at the time, seemed +amply sufficient. + +So the Dean was perpetually taking out his sheets of figures, and +adding them upwards and downwards, and they never came the same. Very +often Mr. Gingham, who was a warden, would come and sit beside the +rector and ponder over the figures, and Mr. Drone would explain that +with a book of logarithms you could work it out in a moment. You +would simply open the book and run your finger up the columns (he +illustrated exactly the way in which the finger was moved), and there +you were. Mr. Gingham said that it was a caution, and that logarithms +(I quote his exact phrase) must be a terror. + +Very often, too, Nivens, the lawyer, who was a sidesman, and Mullins, +the manager of the Exchange Bank, who was the chairman of the vestry, +would come and take a look, at the figures. But they never could make +much of them, because the stipend part was not a matter that one +could discuss. + +Mullins would notice the item for a hundred dollars due on fire +insurance and would say; as a business man, that surely that couldn't +be fire insurance, and the Dean would say surely not, and change it: +and Mullins would say surely there couldn't be fifty dollars for +taxes, because there weren't any taxes, and the Dean would admit that +of course it couldn't be for the taxes. In fact, the truth is that +the Dean's figures were badly mixed, and the fault lay indubitably +with the mathematical professor of two generations back. + +It was always Mullins's intention some day to look into the finances +of the church, the more so as his father had been with Dean Drone at +the little Anglican college with the cricket ground. But he was a +busy man. As he explained to the rector himself, the banking business +nowadays is getting to be such that a banker can hardly call even his +Sunday mornings his own. Certainly Henry Mullins could not. They +belonged largely to Smith's Hotel, and during the fishing season they +belonged away down the lake, so far away that practically no one, +unless it was George Duff of the Commercial Bank, could see them. + +But to think that all this trouble had come through the building of +the new church. + +That was the bitterness of it. + +For the twenty-five years that Rural Dean Drone had preached in the +little stone church, it had been his one aim, as he often put it in +his sermons, to rear a larger Ark in Gideon. His one hope had been to +set up a greater Evidence, or, very simply stated, to kindle a +Brighter Beacon. + +After twenty-five years of waiting, he had been able at last to +kindle it. Everybody in Mariposa remembers the building of the +church. First of all they had demolished the little stone church to +make way for the newer Evidence. It seemed almost a sacrilege, as +the Dean himself said, to lay hands on it. Indeed it was at first +proposed to take the stone of it and build it into a Sunday School, +as a lesser testimony. Then, when that provided impracticable, it was +suggested that the stone be reverently fashioned into a wall that +should stand as a token. And when even that could not be managed, the +stone of the little church was laid reverently into a stone pile; +afterwards it was devoutly sold to a building contractor, and, like +so much else in life, was forgotten. + +But the building of the church, no one, I think, will forget. The +Dean threw himself into the work. With his coat off and his white +shirt-sleeves conspicuous among the gang that were working at the +foundations, he set his hand to the shovel, himself guided the +road-scraper, urging on the horses; cheering and encouraging the men, +till they begged him to desist. He mingled with the stone-masons, +advising, helping, and giving counsel, till they pleaded with him to +rest. He was among the carpenters, sawing, hammering, enquiring, +suggesting, till they besought him to lay off. And he was night and +day with the architect's assistants, drawing, planning, revising, +till the architect told him to cut it out. + +So great was his activity, that I doubt whether the new church would +ever have been finished, had not the wardens and the vestry men +insisted that Mr. Drone must take a holiday, and sent him on the +Mackinaw trip up the lakes,--the only foreign travel of the Dean's +life. + + +So in due time the New Church was built and it towered above the +maple trees of Mariposa like a beacon on a hill. It stood so high +that from the open steeple of it, where the bells were, you could see +all the town lying at its feet, and the farmsteads to the south of +it, and the railway like a double pencil line, and Lake Wissanotti +spread out like a map. You could see and appreciate things from the +height of the new church,--such as the size and the growing wealth of +Mariposa,--that you never could have seen from the little stone +church at all. + +Presently the church was opened and the Dean preached his first +sermon in it, and he called it a Greater Testimony, and he said that +it was an earnest, or first fruit of endeavour, and that it was a +token or pledge, and he named it also a covenant. He said, too, that +it was an anchorage and a harbour and a lighthouse as well as being a +city set upon a hill; and he ended by declaring it an Ark of Refuge +and notified them that the Bible Class would meet in the basement of +it on that and every other third Wednesday. + +In the opening months of preaching about it the Dean had called the +church so often an earnest and a pledge and a guerdon and a +tabernacle, that I think he used to forget that it wasn't paid for. +It was only when the agent of the building society and a +representative of the Hosanna Pipe and Steam Organ Co. (Limited), +used to call for quarterly payments that he was suddenly reminded of +the fact. Always after these men came round the Dean used to preach a +special sermon on sin, in the course of which he would mention that +the ancient Hebrews used to put unjust traders to death,--a thing of +which he spoke with Christian serenity. + +I don't think that at first anybody troubled much about the debt on +the church. Dean Drone's figures showed that it was only a matter of +time before it would be extinguished; only a little effort was +needed, a little girding up of the loins of the congregation and they +could shoulder the whole debt and trample it under their feet. Let +them but set their hands to the plough and they could soon guide it +into the deep water. Then they might furl their sails and sit every +man under his own olive tree. + +Meantime, while the congregation was waiting to gird up its loins, +the interest on the debt was paid somehow, or, when it wasn't paid, +was added to the principal. + +I don't know whether you have had any experience with Greater +Testimonies and with Beacons set on Hills. If you have, you will +realize how, at first gradually, and then rapidly, their position +from year to year grows more distressing. What with the building loan +and the organ instalment, and the fire insurance,--a cruel charge,-- +and the heat and light, the rector began to realize as he added up +the figures that nothing but logarithms could solve them. Then the +time came when not only the rector, but all the wardens knew and the +sidesmen knew that the debt was more than the church could carry; +then the choir knew and the congregation knew and at last everybody +knew; and there were special collections at Easter and special days of +giving, and special weeks of tribulation, and special arrangements +with the Hosanna Pipe and Steam Organ Co. And it was noticed that +when the Rural Dean announced a service of Lenten Sorrow,--aimed more +especially at the business men,--the congregation had diminished by +forty per cent. + +I suppose things are just the same elsewhere,--I mean the peculiar +kind of discontent that crept into the Church of England congregation +in Mariposa after the setting up of the Beacon. There were those who +claimed that they had seen the error from the first, though they had +kept quiet, as such people always do, from breadth of mind. There +were those who had felt years before how it would end, but their lips +were sealed from humility of spirit. What was worse was that there +were others who grew dissatisfied with the whole conduct of the +church. + +Yodel, the auctioneer, for example, narrated how he had been to the +city and had gone into a service of the Roman Catholic church: I +believe, to state it more fairly, he had "dropped in,"--the only +recognized means of access to such a service. He claimed that the +music that he had heard there was music, and that (outside of his +profession) the chanting and intoning could not be touched. + +Ed Moore, the photographer, also related that he had listened to a +sermon in the city, and that if anyone would guarantee him a sermon +like that he would defy you to keep him away from church. Meanwhile, +failing the guarantee, he stayed away. + +The very doctrines were impeached. Some of the congregation began to +cast doubts on eternal punishment,--doubts so grave as to keep them +absent from the Lenten Services of Sorrow. Indeed, Lawyer Macartney +took up the whole question of the Athanasian Creed one afternoon with +Joe Milligan, the dentist, and hardly left a clause of it intact. + +All this time, you will understand, Dean Drone kept on with his +special services, and leaflets, calls, and appeals went out from the +Ark of Gideon like rockets from a sinking ship. More and more with +every month the debt of the church lay heavy on his mind. At times he +forgot it. At other times he woke up in the night and thought about +it. Sometimes as he went down the street from the lighted precincts +of the Greater Testimony and passed the Salvation Army, praying +around a naphtha lamp under the open sky, it smote him to the heart +with a stab. + +But the congregation were wrong, I think, in imputing fault to the +sermons of Dean Drone. There I do think they were wrong. I can speak +from personal knowledge when I say that the rector's sermons were not +only stimulating in matters of faith, but contained valuable material +in regard to the Greek language, to modern machinery and to a variety +of things that should have proved of the highest advantage to the +congregation. + +There was, I say, the Greek language. The Dean always showed the +greatest delicacy of feeling in regard to any translation in or out +of it that he made from the pulpit. He was never willing to accept +even the faintest shade of rendering different from that commonly +given without being assured of the full concurrence of the +congregation. Either the translation must be unanimous and without +contradiction, or he could not pass it. He would pause in his sermon +and would say: "The original Greek is 'Hoson,' but perhaps you will +allow me to translate it as equivalent to 'Hoyon.'" And they did. So +that if there was any fault to be found it was purely on the side of +the congregation for not entering a protest at the time. + +It was the same way in regard to machinery. After all, what better +illustrates the supreme purpose of the All Wise than such a thing as +the dynamo or the reciprocating marine engine or the pictures in the +Scientific American? + +Then, too, if a man has had the opportunity to travel and has seen +the great lakes spread out by the hand of Providence from where one +leaves the new dock at the Sound to where one arrives safe and +thankful with one's dear fellow-passengers in the spirit at the +concrete landing stage at Mackinaw--is not this fit and proper +material for the construction of an analogy or illustration? Indeed, +even apart from an analogy, is it not mighty interesting to narrate, +anyway? In any case, why should the church-wardens have sent the +rector on the Mackinaw trip, if they had not expected him to make +some little return for it? + +I lay some stress on this point because the criticisms directed +against the Mackinaw sermons always seemed so unfair. If the rector +had described his experiences in the crude language of the ordinary +newspaper, there might, I admit, have been something unfitting about +it. But he was always careful to express himself in a way that +showed,--or, listen, let me explain with an example. + +"It happened to be my lot some years ago," he would say, "to find +myself a voyager, just as one is a voyager on the sea of life, on the +broad expanse of water which has been spread out to the north-west of +us by the hand of Providence, at a height of five hundred and +eighty-one feet above the level of the sea,--I refer, I may say, to +Lake Huron." Now, how different that is from saying: "I'll never +forget the time I went on the Mackinaw trip." The whole thing has a +different sound entirely. In the same way the Dean would go on: + +"I was voyaging on one of those magnificent leviathans of the +water,--I refer to the boats of the Northern Navigation Company,--and +was standing beside the forward rail talking with a dear brother in +the faith who was journeying westward also--I may say he was a +commercial traveller,--and beside us was a dear sister in the spirit +seated in a deck chair, while near us were two other dear souls in +grace engaged in Christian pastime on the deck,--I allude more +particularly to the game of deck billiards." + +I leave it to any reasonable man whether, with that complete and +fair-minded explanation of the environment, it was not perfectly +proper to close down the analogy, as the rector did, with the simple +words: "In fact, it was an extremely fine morning." + +Yet there were some people, even in Mariposa, that took exception and +spent their Sunday dinner time in making out that they couldn't +understand what Dean Drone was talking about, and asking one another +if they knew. Once, as he passed out from the doors of the Greater +Testimony, the rector heard some one say: "The Church would be all +right if that old mugwump was out of the pulpit." It went to his +heart like a barbed thorn, and stayed there. + +You know, perhaps, how a remark of that sort can stay and rankle, and +make you wish you could hear it again to make sure of it, because +perhaps you didn't hear it aright, and it was a mistake after all. +Perhaps no one said it, anyway. You ought to have written it down at +the time. I have seen the Dean take down the encyclopaedia in the +rectory, and move his finger slowly down the pages of the letter M, +looking for mugwump. But it wasn't there. I have known him, in his +little study upstairs, turn over the pages of the "Animals of +Palestine," looking for a mugwump. But there was none there. It must +have been unknown in the greater days of Judea. + + +So things went on from month to month, and from year to year, and the +debt and the charges loomed like a dark and gathering cloud on the +horizon. I don't mean to say that efforts were not made to face the +difficulty and to fight it. They were. Time after time the workers of +the congregation got together and thought out plans for the +extinction of the debt. But somehow, after every trial, the debt grew +larger with each year, and every system that could be devised turned +out more hopeless than the last. + +They began, I think, with the "endless chain" of letters of appeal. +You may remember the device, for it was all-popular in clerical +circles some ten or fifteen years ago. You got a number of people to +write each of them three letters asking for ten cents from three each +of their friends and asking each of them to send on three similar +letters. Three each from three each, and three each more from each! +Do you observe the wonderful ingenuity of it? Nobody, I think, has +forgotten how the Willing Workers of the Church of England Church of +Mariposa sat down in the vestry room in the basement with a pile of +stationery three feet high, sending out the letters. Some, I know, +will never forget it. Certainly not Mr. Pupkin, the teller in the +Exchange Bank, for it was here that he met Zena Pepperleigh, the +judge's daughter, for the first time; and they worked so busily that +they wrote out ever so many letters--eight or nine--in a single +afternoon, and they discovered that their handwritings were awfully +alike, which was one of the most extraordinary and amazing +coincidences, you will admit, in the history of chirography. + +But the scheme failed--failed utterly. I don't know why. The letters +went out and were copied broadcast and recopied, till you could see +the Mariposa endless chain winding its way towards the Rocky +Mountains. But they never got the ten cents. The Willing Workers +wrote for it in thousands, but by some odd chance they never struck +the person who had it. + +Then after that there came a regular winter of effort. First of all +they had a bazaar that was got up by the Girls' Auxiliary and held in +the basement of the church. All the girls wore special costumes that +were brought up from the city, and they had booths, where there was +every imaginable thing for sale--pincushion covers, and chair covers, +and sofa covers, everything that you can think of. If the people had +once started buying them, the debt would have been lifted in no time. +Even as it was the bazaar only lost twenty dollars. + +After that, I think, was the magic lantern lecture that Dean Drone +gave on "Italy and her Invaders." They got the lantern and the slides +up from the city, and it was simply splendid. Some of the slides were +perhaps a little confusing, but it was all there,--the pictures of +the dense Italian jungle and the crocodiles and the naked invaders +with their invading clubs. It was a pity that it was such a bad +night, snowing hard, and a curling match on, or they would have made +a lot of money out of the lecture. As it was the loss, apart from the +breaking of the lantern, which was unavoidable, was quite trifling. + + +I can hardly remember all the things that there were after that. I +recollect that it was always Mullins who arranged about renting the +hall and printing the tickets and all that sort of thing. His father, +you remember, had been at the Anglican college with Dean Drone, and +though the rector was thirty-seven years older than Mullins, he +leaned upon him, in matters of business, as upon a staff; and though +Mullins was thirty-seven years younger than the Dean, he leaned +against him, in matters of doctrine, as against a rock. + +At one time they got the idea that what the public wanted was not +anything instructive but something light and amusing. Mullins said +that people loved to laugh. He said that if you get a lot of people +all together and get them laughing you can do anything you like with +them. Once they start to laugh they are lost. So they got Mr. Dreery, +the English Literature teacher at the high school, to give an evening +of readings from the Great Humorists from Chaucer to Adam Smith. They +came mighty near to making a barrel of money out of that. If the +people had once started laughing it would have been all over with +them. As it was I heard a lot of them say that they simply wanted to +scream with laughter: they said they just felt like bursting into +peals of laughter all the time. Even when, in the more subtle parts, +they didn't feel like bursting out laughing, they said they had all +they could do to keep from smiling. They said they never had such a +hard struggle in their lives not to smile. + +In fact the chairman said when he put the vote of thanks that he was +sure if people had known what the lecture was to be like there would +have been a much better "turn-out." But you see all that the people +had to go on was just the announcement of the name of the lecturer, +Mr. Dreery, and that he would lecture on English Humour All Seats +Twenty-five Cents. As the chairman expressed it himself, if the +people had had any idea, any idea at all, of what the lecture would +be like they would have been there in hundreds. But how could they +get an idea that it would be so amusing with practically nothing to +go upon? + + +After that attempt things seemed to go from bad to worse. Nearly +everybody was disheartened about it. What would have happened to the +debt, or whether they would have ever paid it off, is more than I can +say, if it hadn't occurred that light broke in on Mullins in the +strangest and most surprising way you can imagine. It happened that +he went away for his bank holidays, and while he was away he happened +to be present in one of the big cities and saw how they went at it +there to raise money. He came home in such a state of excitement that +he went straight up from the Mariposa station to the rectory, valise +and all, and he burst in one April evening to where the Rural Dean +was sitting with the three girls beside the lamp in the front room, +and he cried out: + +"Mr. Drone, I've got it,--I've got a way that will clear the debt +before you're a fortnight older. We'll have a Whirlwind Campaign in +Mariposa!" + +But stay! The change from the depth of depression to the pinnacle of +hope is too abrupt. I must pause and tell you in another chapter of +the Whirlwind Campaign in Mariposa. + + + +FIVE + +The Whirlwind Campaign in Mariposa + +It was Mullins, the banker, who told Mariposa all about the plan of a +Whirlwind Campaign and explained how it was to be done. He'd happened +to be in one of the big cities when they were raising money by a +Whirlwind Campaign for one of the universities, and he saw it all. + +He said he would never forget the scene on the last day of it, when +the announcement was made that the total of the money raised was even +more than what was needed. It was a splendid sight,--the business men +of the town all cheering and laughing and shaking hands, and the +professors with the tears streaming down their faces, and the Deans +of the Faculties, who had given money themselves, sobbing aloud. + +He said it was the most moving thing he ever saw. + +So, as I said, Henry Mullins, who had seen it, explained to the +others how it was done. He said that first of all a few of the +business men got together quietly,--very quietly, indeed the more +quietly the better,--and talked things over. Perhaps one of them +would dine,--just quietly,--with another one and discuss the +situation. Then these two would invite a third man,--possibly even a +fourth,--to have lunch with them and talk in a general way,--even +talk of other things part of the time. And so on in this way things +would be discussed and looked at in different lights and viewed from +different angles and then when everything was ready they would go at +things with a rush. A central committee would be formed and +sub-committees, with captains of each group and recorders and +secretaries, and on a stated day the Whirlwind Campaign would begin. + +Each day the crowd would all agree to meet at some stated place and +each lunch together,--say at a restaurant or at a club or at some +eating place. This would go on every day with the interest getting +keener and keener, and everybody getting more and more excited, till +presently the chairman would announce that the campaign had succeeded +and there would be the kind of scene that Mullins had described. + +So that was the plan that they set in motion in Mariposa. + + +I don't wish to say too much about the Whirlwind Campaign itself. I +don't mean to say that it was a failure. On the contrary, in many +ways it couldn't have been a greater success, and yet somehow it +didn't seem to work out just as Henry Mullins had said it would. It +may be that there are differences between Mariposa and the larger +cities that one doesn't appreciate at first sight. Perhaps it would +have been better to try some other plan. + +Yet they followed along the usual line of things closely enough. They +began with the regular system of some of the business men getting +together in a quiet way. + +First of all, for example, Henry Mullins came over quietly to Duff's +rooms, over the Commercial Bank, with a bottle of rye whiskey, and +they talked things over. And the night after that George Duff came +over quietly to Mullins's rooms, over the Exchange Bank, with a +bottle of Scotch whiskey. A few evenings after that Mullins and Duff +went together, in a very unostentatious way, with perhaps a couple of +bottles of rye, to Pete Glover's room over the hardware store. And +then all three of them went up one night with Ed Moore, the +photographer, to Judge Pepperleigh's house under pretence of having a +game of poker. The very day after that, Mullins and Duff and Ed +Moore, and Pete Glover and the judge got Will Harrison, the harness +maker, to go out without any formality on the lake on the pretext of +fishing. And the next night after that Duff and Mullins and Ed Moore +and Pete Glover and Pepperleigh and Will Harrison got Alf Trelawney, +the postmaster, to come over, just in a casual way, to the Mariposa +House, after the night mail, and the next day Mullins and Duff and-- + +But, pshaw! you see at once how the thing is worked. There's no need +to follow that part of the Whirlwind Campaign further. But it just +shows the power of organization. + +And all this time, mind you, they were talking things over, and +looking at things first in one light and then in another light,--in +fact, just doing as the big city men do when there's an important +thing like this under way. + +So after things had been got pretty well into shape in this way, Duff +asked Mullins one night, straight out, if he would be chairman of the +Central Committee. He sprung it on him and Mullins had no time to +refuse, but he put it to Duff straight whether he would be treasurer. +And Duff had no time to refuse. + + +That gave things a start, and within a week they had the whole +organization on foot. There was the Grand Central Committee and six +groups or sub-committees of twenty men each, and a captain for every +group. They had it all arranged on the lines most likely to be +effective. + +In one group there were all the bankers, Mullins and Duff and Pupkin +(with the cameo pin), and about four others. They had their +photographs taken at Ed Moore's studio, taken in a line with a +background of icebergs--a winter scene--and a pretty penetrating +crowd they looked, I can tell you. After all, you know, if you get a +crowd of representative bank men together in any financial deal, +you've got a pretty considerable leverage right away. + +In the second group were the lawyers, Nivens and Macartney and the +rest--about as level-headed a lot as you'd see anywhere. Get the +lawyers of a town with you on a thing like this and you'll find +you've got a sort of brain power with you that you'd never get +without them. + +Then there were the business men--there was a solid crowd for +you,--Harrison, the harness maker, and Glover, the hardware man, and +all that gang, not talkers, perhaps, but solid men who can tell you +to a nicety how many cents there are in a dollar. It's all right to +talk about education and that sort of thing, but if you want driving +power and efficiency, get business men. They're seeing it every day +in the city, and it's just the same in Mariposa. Why, in the big +concerns in the city, if they found out a man was educated, they +wouldn't have him,--wouldn't keep him there a minute. That's why the +business men have to conceal it so much. + +Then in the other teams there were the doctors and the newspaper men +and the professional men like Judge Pepperleigh and Yodel the +auctioneer. + + +It was all organized so that every team had its headquarters, two of +them in each of the three hotels--one upstairs and one down. And it +was arranged that there would be a big lunch every day, to be held in +Smith's caff, round the corner of Smith's Northern Health Resort and +Home of the Wissanotti Angler,--you know the place. The lunch was +divided up into tables, with a captain for each table to see about +things to drink, and of course all the tables were in competition +with one another. In fact the competition was the very life of the +whole thing. + +It's just wonderful how these things run when they're organized. Take +the first luncheon, for example. There they all were, every man in +his place, every captain at his post at the top of the table. It was +hard, perhaps, for some of them to get there. They had very likely to +be in their stores and banks and offices till the last minute and +then make a dash for it. It was the cleanest piece of team work you +ever saw. + +You have noticed already, I am sure, that a good many of the captains +and committee men didn't belong to the Church of England Church. +Glover, for instance, was a Presbyterian, till they ran the picket +fence of the manse two feet on to his property, and after that he +became a free-thinker. But in Mariposa, as I have said, everybody +likes to be in everything and naturally a Whirlwind Campaign was a +novelty. Anyway it would have been a poor business to keep a man out +of the lunches merely on account of his religion. I trust that the +day for that kind of religious bigotry is past. + +Of course the excitement was when Henry Mullins at the head of the +table began reading out the telegrams and letters and messages. First +of all there was a telegram of good wishes from the Anglican Lord +Bishop of the Diocese to Henry Mullins and calling him Dear Brother +in Grace the Mariposa telegraph office is a little unreliable and it +read: "Dear Brother in grease," but that was good enough. The Bishop +said that his most earnest wishes were with them. + +Then Mullins read a letter from the Mayor of Mariposa Pete Glover was +mayor that year--stating that his keenest desires were with them: and +then one from the Carriage Company saying that its heartiest good +will was all theirs; and then one from the Meat Works saying that its +nearest thoughts were next to them. Then he read one from himself, as +head of the Exchange Bank, you understand, informing him that he had +heard of his project and assuring him of his liveliest interest in +what he proposed. + +At each of these telegrams and messages there was round after round +of applause, so that you could hardly hear yourself speak or give an +order. But that was nothing to when Mullins got up again, and beat on +the table for silence and made one of those crackling speeches--just +the way business men speak--the kind of speech that a college man +simply can't make. I wish I could repeat it all. I remember that it +began: "Now boys, you know what we're here for, gentlemen," and it +went on just as good as that all through. When Mullins had done he +took out a fountain pen and wrote out a cheque for a hundred dollars, +conditional on the fund reaching fifty thousand. And there was a +burst of cheers all over the room. + +Just the moment he had done it, up sprang George Duff,--you know the +keen competition there is, as a straight matter of business, between +the banks in Mariposa,--up sprang George Duff, I say, and wrote out a +cheque for another hundred conditional on the fund reaching seventy +thousand. You never heard such cheering in your life. + +And then when Netley walked up to the head of the table and laid down +a cheque for a hundred dollars conditional on the fund reaching one +hundred thousand the room was in an uproar. A hundred thousand +dollars! Just think of it! The figures fairly stagger one. To think +of a hundred thousand dollars raised in five minutes in a little +place like Mariposa! + +And even that was nothing! In less than no time there was such a +crowd round Mullins trying to borrow his pen all at once that his +waistcoat was all stained with ink. Finally when they got order at +last, and Mullins stood up and announced that the conditional fund +had reached a quarter of a million, the whole place was a perfect +babel of cheering. Oh, these Whirlwind Campaigns are wonderful +things! + + +I can tell you the Committee felt pretty proud that first day. There +was Henry Mullins looking a little bit flushed and excited, with his +white waistcoat and an American Beauty rose, and with ink marks all +over him from the cheque signing; and he kept telling them that he'd +known all along that all that was needed was to get the thing started +and telling again about what he'd seen at the University Campaign and +about the professors crying, and wondering if the high school +teachers would come down for the last day of the meetings. + +Looking back on the Mariposa Whirlwind, I can never feel that it was +a failure. After all, there is a sympathy and a brotherhood in these +things when men work shoulder to shoulder. If you had seen the +canvassers of the Committee going round the town that evening +shoulder to shoulder from the Mariposa House to the Continental and +up to Mullins's rooms and over to Duffs, shoulder to shoulder, you'd +have understood it. + +I don't say that every lunch was quite such a success as the first. +It's not always easy to get out of the store if you're a busy man, +and a good many of the Whirlwind Committee found that they had just +time to hurry down and snatch their lunch and get back again. Still, +they came, and snatched it. As long as the lunches lasted, they came. +Even if they had simply to rush it and grab something to eat and +drink without time to talk to anybody, they came. + +No, no, it was not lack of enthusiasm that killed the Whirlwind +Campaign in Mariposa. It must have been something else. I don't just +know what it was but I think it had something to do with the +financial, the book-keeping side of the thing. + +It may have been, too, that the organization was not quite correctly +planned. You see, if practically everybody is on the committees, it +is awfully hard to try to find men to canvass, and it is not +allowable for the captains and the committee men to canvass one +another, because their gifts are spontaneous. So the only thing that +the different groups could do was to wait round in some likely +place--say the bar parlour of Smith's Hotel--in the hope that +somebody might come in who could be canvassed. + +You might ask why they didn't canvass Mr. Smith himself, but of +course they had done that at the very start, as I should have said. +Mr. Smith had given them two hundred dollars in cash conditional on +the lunches being held in the caff of his hotel; and it's awfully +hard to get a proper lunch I mean the kind to which a Bishop can +express regret at not being there--under a dollar twenty-five. So +Mr. Smith got back his own money, and the crowd began eating into the +benefactions, and it got more and more complicated whether to hold +another lunch in the hope of breaking even, or to stop the campaign. + +It was disappointing, yes. In spite of all the success and the +sympathy, it was disappointing. I don't say it didn't do good. No +doubt a lot of the men got to know one another better than ever they +had before. I have myself heard Judge Pepperleigh say that after the +campaign he knew all of Pete Glover that he wanted to. There was a +lot of that kind of complete satiety. The real trouble about the +Whirlwind Campaign was that they never clearly understood which of +them were the whirlwind and who were to be the campaign. + +Some of them, I believe, took it pretty much to heart. I know that +Henry Mullins did. You could see it. The first day he came down to +the lunch, all dressed up with the American Beauty and the white +waistcoat. The second day he only wore a pink carnation and a grey +waistcoat. The third day he had on a dead daffodil and a cardigan +undervest, and on the last day, when the high school teachers should +have been there, he only wore his office suit and he hadn't even +shaved. He looked beaten. + +It was that night that he went up to the rectory to tell the news to +Dean Drone. It had been arranged, you know, that the rector should +not attend the lunches, so as to let the whole thing come as a +surprise; so that all he knew about it was just scraps of information +about the crowds at the lunch and how they cheered and all that. +Once, I believe, he caught sight of the Newspacket with a two-inch +headline: A QUARTER OF A MILLION, but he wouldn't let himself read +further because it would have spoilt the surprise. + +I saw Mullins, as I say, go up the street on his way to Dean Drone's. +It was middle April and there was ragged snow on the streets, and the +nights were dark still, and cold. I saw Mullins grit his teeth as he +walked, and I know that he held in his coat pocket his own cheque for +the hundred, with the condition taken off it, and he said that there +were so many skunks in Mariposa that a man might as well be in the +Head Office in the city. + +The Dean came out to the little gate in the dark,--you could see the +lamplight behind him from the open door of the rectory,--and he shook +hands with Mullins and they went in together. + + + +SIX + +The Beacon on the Hill + +Mullins said afterward that it was ever so much easier than he +thought it would have been. The Dean, he said, was so quiet. Of +course if Mr. Drone had started to swear at Mullins, or tried to +strike him, it would have been much harder. But as it was he was so +quiet that part of the time he hardly seemed to follow what Mullins +was saying. So Mullins was glad of that, because it proved that the +Dean wasn't feeling disappointed as, in a way, he might have. + +Indeed, the only time when the rector seemed animated and excited in +the whole interview was when Mullins said that the campaign had been +ruined by a lot of confounded mugwumps. Straight away the Dean asked +if those mugwumps had really prejudiced the outcome of the campaign. +Mullins said there was no doubt of it, and the Dean enquired if the +presence of mugwumps was fatal in matters of endeavour, and Mullins +said that it was. Then the rector asked if even one mugwump was, in +the Christian sense, deleterious. Mullins said that one mugwump +would kill anything. After that the Dean hardly spoke at all. + +In fact, the rector presently said that he mustn't detain Mullins too +long and that he had detained him too long already and that Mullins +must be weary from his train journey and that in cases of extreme +weariness nothing but a sound sleep was of any avail; he himself, +unfortunately, would not be able to avail himself of the priceless +boon of slumber until he had first retired to his study to write some +letters; so that Mullins, who had a certain kind of social quickness +of intuition, saw that it was time to leave, and went away. + +It was midnight as he went down the street, and a dark, still night. +That can be stated positively because it came out in court +afterwards. Mullins swore that it was a dark night; he admitted, +under examination, that there may have been the stars, or at least +some of the less important of them, though he had made no attempt, as +brought out on cross-examination, to count them: there may have been, +too, the electric lights, and Mullins was not willing to deny that it +was quite possible that there was more or less moonlight. But that +there was no light that night in the form of sunlight, Mullins was +absolutely certain. All that, I say, came out in court. + +But meanwhile the rector had gone upstairs to his study and had +seated himself in front of his table to write his letters. It was +here always that he wrote his sermons. From the window of the room +you looked through the bare white maple trees to the sweeping outline +of the church shadowed against the night sky, and beyond that, though +far off, was the new cemetery where the rector walked of a Sunday (I +think I told you why): beyond that again, for the window faced the +east, there lay, at no very great distance, the New Jerusalem. There +were no better things that a man might look towards from his study +window, nor anything that could serve as a better aid to writing. + +But this night the Dean's letters must have been difficult indeed to +write. For he sat beside the table holding his pen and with his head +bent upon his other hand, and though he sometimes put a line or two +on the paper, for the most part he sat motionless. The fact is that +Dean Drone was not trying to write letters, but only one letter. He +was writing a letter of resignation. If you have not done that for +forty years it is extremely difficult to get the words. + +So at least the Dean found it. First he wrote one set of words and +then he sat and thought and wrote something else. But nothing seemed +to suit. + +The real truth was that Dean Drone, perhaps more than he knew +himself, had a fine taste for words and effects, and when you feel +that a situation is entirely out of the common, you naturally try, if +you have that instinct, to give it the right sort of expression. + +I believe that at the time when Rupert Drone had taken the medal in +Greek over fifty years ago, it was only a twist of fate that had +prevented him from becoming a great writer. There was a buried author +in him just as there was a buried financier in Jefferson Thorpe. In +fact, there were many people in Mariposa like that, and for all I +know you may yourself have seen such elsewhere. For instance, I am +certain that Billy Rawson, the telegraph operator at Mariposa, could +easily have invented radium. In the same way one has only to read +the advertisements of Mr. Gingham, the undertaker, to know that there +is still in him a poet, who could have written on death far more +attractive verses than the Thanatopsis of Cullen Bryant, and under a +title less likely to offend the public and drive away custom. He has +told me this himself. + +So the Dean tried first this and then that and nothing would seem to +suit. First of all he wrote: + +"It is now forty years since I came among you, a youth full of life +and hope and ardent in the work before me--" Then he paused, doubtful +of the accuracy and clearness of the expression, read it over again +and again in deep thought and then began again: + +"It is now forty years since I came among you, a broken and +melancholy boy, without life or hope, desiring only to devote to the +service of this parish such few years as might remain of an existence +blighted before it had truly begun--" And then again the Dean +stopped. He read what he had written; he frowned; he crossed it +through with his pen. This was no way to write, this thin egotistical +strain of complaint. Once more he started: + +"It is now forty years since I came among you, a man already +tempered and trained, except possibly in mathematics--" And then +again the rector paused and his mind drifted away to the memory of +the Anglican professor that I spoke of, who had had so little sense +of his higher mission as to omit the teaching of logarithms. And the +rector mused so long that when he began again it seemed to him that +it was simpler and better to discard the personal note altogether, +and he wrote: + +"There are times, gentlemen, in the life of a parish, when it comes +to an epoch which brings it to a moment when it reaches a point--" + +The Dean stuck fast again, but refusing this time to be beaten went +resolutely on: + +"--reaches a point where the circumstances of the moment make the +epoch such as to focus the life of the parish in that time." + +Then the Dean saw that he was beaten, and he knew that he not only +couldn't manage the parish but couldn't say so in proper English, and +of the two the last was the bitterer discovery. + +He raised his head, and looked for a moment through the window at the +shadow of the church against the night, so outlined that you could +almost fancy that the light of the New Jerusalem was beyond it. Then +he wrote, and this time not to the world at large but only to +Mullins: + +"My dear Harry, I want to resign my charge. Will you come over and +help me?" + + +When the Dean at last rose from writing that, I think it was far on +in the night. As he rose he looked again through the window, looked +once and then once more, and so stood with widening eyes, and his +face set towards what he saw. + +What was that? That light in the sky there, eastward?--near or far +he could not say. Was it already the dawn of the New Jerusalem +brightening in the east, or was it--look--in the church +itself,--what is that?--that dull red glow that shines behind the +stained-glass windows, turning them to crimson? that fork of flame +that breaks now from the casement and flashes upward, along the +wood--and see--that sudden sheet of fire that springs the windows of +the church with the roar of splintered glass and surges upward into +the sky, till the dark night and the bare trees and sleeping street +of Mariposa are all illumined with its glow! + +Fire! Fire! and the sudden sound of the bell now, breaking upon the +night. + +So stood the Dean erect, with one hand pressed against the table for +support, while the Mariposa fire bell struck out its warning to the +sleeping town,--stood there while the street grew loud with the +tumult of voices,--with the roaring gallop of the fire brigade,--with +the harsh note of the gong--and over all other sounds, the great +seething of the flames that tore their way into the beams and rafters +of the pointed church and flared above it like a torch into the +midnight sky. + +So stood the Dean, and as the church broke thus into a very beacon +kindled upon a hill,--sank forward without a sign, his face against +the table, stricken. + + +You need to see a fire in a place such as Mariposa, a town still half +of wood, to know what fire means. In the city it is all different. To +the onlooker, at any rate, a fire is only a spectacle, nothing more. +Everything is arranged, organized, certain. It is only once perhaps +in a century that fire comes to a large city as it comes to the +little wooden town like Mariposa as a great Terror of the Night. + +That, at any rate, is what it meant in Mariposa that night in April, +the night the Church of England Church burnt down. Had the fire +gained but a hundred feet, or less, it could have reached from the +driving shed behind the church to the backs of the wooden shops of +the Main Street, and once there not all the waters of Lake Wissanotti +could stay the course of its destruction. It was for that hundred +feet that they fought, the men of Mariposa, from the midnight call of +the bell till the slow coming of the day. They fought the fire, not +to save the church, for that was doomed from the first outbreak of +the flames, but to stop the spread of it and save the town. They +fought it at the windows, and at the blazing doors, and through the +yawning furnace of the open belfry; fought it, with the Mariposa +engine thumping and panting in the street, itself aglow with fire +like a servant demon fighting its own kind, with tall ladders +reaching to the very roof, and with hose that poured their streams of +tossing water foaming into the flames. + +Most of all they fought to save the wooden driving shed behind the +church from which the fire could leap into the heart of Mariposa. +That was where the real fight was, for the life of the town. I wish +you could have seen how they turned the hose against the shingles, +ripping and tearing them from their places with the force of the +driven water: how they mounted on the roof, axe in hand, and cut +madly at the rafters to bring the building down, while the black +clouds of smoke rolled in volumes about the men as they worked. You +could see the fire horses harnessed with logging chains to the +uprights of the shed to tear the building from its place. + +Most of all I wish you could have seen Mr. Smith, proprietor, as I +think you know, of Smith's Hotel, there on the roof with a fireman's +helmet on, cutting through the main beam of solid cedar, twelve by +twelve, that held tight still when the rafters and the roof tree were +down already, the shed on fire in a dozen places, and the other men +driven from the work by the flaming sparks, and by the strangle of +the smoke. Not so Mr. Smith! See him there as he plants himself firm +at the angle of the beams, and with the full impact of his two +hundred and eighty pounds drives his axe into the wood! I tell you it +takes a man from the pine country of the north to handle an axe! +Right, left, left, right, down it comes, with never a pause or stay, +never missing by a fraction of an inch the line of the stroke! At it, +Smith! Down with it! Till with a shout from the crowd the beam gapes +asunder, and Mr. Smith is on the ground again, roaring his directions +to the men and horses as they haul down the shed, in a voice that +dominates the fire itself. + +Who made Mr. Smith the head and chief of the Mariposa fire brigade +that night, I cannot say. I do not know even where he got the huge +red helmet that he wore, nor had I ever heard till the night the +church burnt down that Mr. Smith was a member of the fire brigade at +all. But it's always that way. Your little narrow-chested men may +plan and organize, but when there is something to be done, something +real, then it's the man of size and weight that steps to the front +every time. Look at Bismarck and Mr. Gladstone and President Taft and +Mr. Smith,--the same thing in each case. + +I suppose it was perfectly natural that just as soon as Mr. Smith +came on the scene he put on somebody's helmet and shouted his +directions to the men and bossed the Mariposa fire brigade like +Bismarck with the German parliament. + +The fire had broken out late, late at night, and they fought it till +the day. The flame of it lit up the town and the bare grey maple +trees, and you could see in the light of it the broad sheet of the +frozen lake, snow covered still. It kindled such a beacon as it +burned that from the other side of the lake the people on the night +express from the north could see it twenty miles away. It lit up +such a testimony of flame that Mariposa has never seen the like of it +before or since. Then when the roof crashed in and the tall steeple +tottered and fell, so swift a darkness seemed to come that the grey +trees and the frozen lake vanished in a moment as if blotted out of +existence. + + +When the morning came the great church of Mariposa was nothing but a +ragged group of walls with a sodden heap of bricks and blackened +wood, still hissing here and there beneath the hose with the sullen +anger of a conquered fire. Round the ruins of the fire walked the +people of Mariposa next morning, and they pointed out where the wreck +of the steeple had fallen, and where the bells of the church lay in a +molten heap among the bricks, and they talked of the loss that it was +and how many dollars it would take to rebuild the church, and whether +it was insured and for how much. And there were at least fourteen +people who had seen the fire first, and more than that who had given +the first alarm, and ever so many who knew how fires of this sort +could be prevented. + +Most noticeable of all you could see the sidesmen and the wardens and +Mullins, the chairman of the vestry, talking in little groups about +the fire. Later in the day there came from the city the insurance men +and the fire appraisers, and they too walked about the ruins, and +talked with the wardens and the vestry men. There was such a luxury +of excitement in the town that day that it was just as good as a +public holiday. + +But the strangest part of it was the unexpected sequel. I don't know +through what error of the Dean's figures it happened, through what +lack of mathematical training the thing turned out as it did. No +doubt the memory of the mathematical professor was heavily to blame +for it, but the solid fact is that the Church of England Church of +Mariposa turned out to be insured for a hundred thousand, and there +were the receipts and the vouchers, all signed and regular, just as +they found them in a drawer of the rector's study. There was no doubt +about it. The insurance people might protest as they liked. The +straight, plain fact was that the church was insured for about twice +the whole amount of the cost and the debt and the rector's salary and +the boarding-school fees of the littlest of the Drones all put +together. + + +There was a Whirlwind Campaign for you! Talk of raising money,--that +was something like! I wonder if the universities and the city +institutions that go round trying to raise money by the slow and +painful method called a Whirlwind Campaign, that takes perhaps all +day to raise fifty thousand dollars, ever thought of anything so +beautifully simple as this. + +The Greater Testimony that had lain so heavily on the congregation +went flaming to its end, and burned up its debts and its obligations +and enriched its worshippers by its destruction. Talk of a beacon on +a hill! You can hardly beat that one. + +I wish you could have seen how the wardens and the sidesmen and +Mullins, the chairman of the vestry, smiled and chuckled at the +thought of it. Hadn't they said all along that all that was needed +was a little faith and effort? And here it was, just as they said, +and they'd been right after all. + +Protest from the insurance people? Legal proceedings to prevent +payment? My dear sir! I see you know nothing about the Mariposa +court, in spite of the fact that I have already said that it was one +of the most precise instruments of British fair play ever +established. Why, Judge Pepperleigh disposed of the case and +dismissed the protest of the company in less than fifteen minutes! +Just what the jurisdiction of Judge Pepperleigh's court is I don't +know, but I do know that in upholding the rights of a Christian +congregation--I am quoting here the text of the decision--against the +intrigues of a set of infernal skunks that make too much money, +anyway, the Mariposa court is without an equal. Pepperleigh even +threatened the plaintiffs with the penitentiary, or worse. + +How the fire started no one ever knew. There was a queer story that +went about to the effect that Mr. Smith and Mr. Gingham's assistant +had been seen very late that night carrying an automobile can of +kerosene up the street. But that was amply disproved by the +proceedings of the court, and by the evidence of Mr. Smith himself. +He took his dying oath,--not his ordinary one as used in the License +cases, but his dying one,--that he had not carried a can of kerosene +up the street, and that anyway it was the rottenest kind of kerosene +he had ever seen and no more use than so much molasses. So that point +was settled. + +Dean Drone? Did he get well again? Why, what makes you ask that? You +mean, was his head at all affected after the stroke? No, it was not. +Absolutely not. It was not affected in the least, though how anybody +who knows him now in Mariposa could have the faintest idea that his +mind was in any way impaired by the stroke is more than I can tell. +The engaging of Mr. Uttermost, the curate, whom perhaps you have +heard preach in the new church, had nothing whatever to do with Dean +Drone's head. It was merely a case of the pressure of overwork. It +was felt very generally by the wardens that, in these days of +specialization, the rector was covering too wide a field, and that if +he should abandon some of the lesser duties of his office, he might +devote his energies more intently to the Infant Class. That was all. +You may hear him there any afternoon, talking to them, if you will +stand under the maple trees and listen through the open windows of +the new Infant School. + +And, as for audiences, for intelligence, for attention--well, if I +want to find listeners who can hear and understand about the great +spaces of Lake Huron, let me tell of it, every time face to face with +the blue eyes of the Infant Class, fresh from the infinity of spaces +greater still. Talk of grown-up people all you like, but for +listeners let me have the Infant Class with their pinafores and their +Teddy Bears and their feet not even touching the floor, and Mr. +Uttermost may preach to his heart's content of the newer forms of +doubt revealed by the higher criticism. + +So you will understand that the Dean's mind is, if anything, even +keener, and his head even clearer than before. And if you want proof +of it, notice him there beneath the plum blossoms reading in the +Greek: he has told me that he finds that he can read, with the +greatest ease, works in the Greek that seemed difficult before. +Because his head is so clear now. + +And sometimes,--when his head is very clear,--as he sits there +reading beneath the plum blossoms he can hear them singing beyond, +and his wife's voice. + + + +SEVEN + +The Extraordinary Entanglement of Mr. Pupkin + +Judge Pepperleigh lived in a big house with hardwood floors and a +wide piazza that looked over the lake from the top of Oneida Street. + +Every day about half-past five he used to come home from his office +in the Mariposa Court House. On some days as he got near the house he +would call out to his wife: + +"Almighty Moses, Martha! who left the sprinkler on the grass?" + +On other days he would call to her from quite a little distance off: +"Hullo, mother! Got any supper for a hungry man?" + +And Mrs. Pepperleigh never knew which it would be. On the days when +he swore at the sprinkler you could see his spectacles flash like +dynamite. But on the days when he called: "Hullo, mother," they were +simply irradiated with kindliness. + +Some days, I say, he would cry out with a perfect whine of +indignation: "Suffering Caesar! has that infernal dog torn up those +geraniums again?" And other days you would hear him singing out: +"Hullo, Rover! Well, doggie, well, old fellow!" + +In the same way at breakfast, the judge, as he looked over the +morning paper, would sometimes leap to his feet with a perfect howl +of suffering, and cry: "Everlasting Moses! the Liberals have carried +East Elgin." Or else he would lean back from the breakfast table with +the most good-humoured laugh you ever heard and say: "Ha! ha! the +Conservatives have carried South Norfolk." + +And yet he was perfectly logical, when you come to think of it. After +all, what is more annoying to a sensitive, highly-strung man than an +infernal sprinkler playing all over the place, and what more +agreeable to a good-natured, even-tempered fellow than a +well-prepared supper? Or, what is more likeable than one's good, old, +affectionate dog bounding down the path from sheer delight at seeing +you,--or more execrable than an infernal whelp that has torn up the +geraniums and is too old to keep, anyway? + +As for politics, well, it all seemed reasonable enough. When the +Conservatives got in anywhere, Pepperleigh laughed and enjoyed it, +simply because it does one good to see a straight, fine, honest fight +where the best man wins. When a Liberal got in, it made him mad, and +he said so,--not, mind you, from any political bias, for his office +forbid it,--but simply because one can't bear to see the country go +absolutely to the devil. + +I suppose, too, it was partly the effect of sitting in court all day +listening to cases. One gets what you might call the judicial temper +of mind. Pepperleigh had it so strongly developed that I've seen him +kick a hydrangea pot to pieces with his foot because the accursed +thing wouldn't flower. He once threw the canary cage clear into the +lilac bushes because the "blasted bird wouldn't stop singing." It was +a straight case of judicial temper. Lots of judges have it, developed +in just the same broad, all-round way as with Judge Pepperleigh. + + +I think it must be passing sentences that does it. Anyway, +Pepperleigh had the aptitude for passing sentences so highly +perfected that he spent his whole time at it inside of court and out. +I've heard him hand out sentences for the Sultan of Turkey and Mrs. +Pankhurst and the Emperor of Germany that made one's blood run cold. +He would sit there on the piazza of a summer evening reading the +paper, with dynamite sparks flying from his spectacles as he +sentenced the Czar of Russia to ten years in the salt mines--and made +it fifteen a few minutes afterwards. Pepperleigh always read the +foreign news--the news of things that he couldn't alter--as a form of +wild and stimulating torment. + +So you can imagine that in some ways the judge's house was a pretty +difficult house to go to. I mean you can see how awfully hard it must +have been for Mr. Pupkin. I tell you it took some nerve to step up +on that piazza and say, in a perfectly natural, off-hand way: "Oh, +how do you do, judge? Is Miss Zena in? No, I won't stay, thanks; I +think I ought to be going. I simply called." A man who can do that +has got to have a pretty fair amount of savoir what do you call it, +and he's got to be mighty well shaved and have his cameo pin put in +his tie at a pretty undeniable angle before he can tackle it. Yes, +and even then he may need to hang round behind the lilac bushes for +half an hour first, and cool off. And he's apt to make pretty good +time down Oneida Street on the way back. + +Still, that's what you call love, and if you've got it, and are well +shaved, and your boots well blacked, you can do things that seem +almost impossible. Yes, you can do anything, even if you do trip over +the dog in getting off the piazza. + +Don't suppose for a moment that Judge Pepperleigh was an +unapproachable or a harsh man always and to everybody. Even Mr. +Pupkin had to admit that that couldn't be so. To know that, you had +only to see Zena Pepperleigh put her arm round his neck and call him +Daddy. She would do that even when there were two or three young men +sitting on the edge of the piazza. You know, I think, the way they +sit on the edge in Mariposa. It is meant to indicate what part of the +family they have come to see. Thus when George Duff, the bank +manager, came up to the Pepperleigh house, he always sat in a chair +on the verandah and talked to the judge. But when Pupkin or Mallory +Tompkins or any fellow like that came, he sat down in a sidelong +fashion on the edge of the boards and then they knew exactly what he +was there for. If he knew the house well, he leaned his back against +the verandah post and smoked a cigarette. But that took nerve. + +But I am afraid that this is a digression, and, of course, you know +all about it just as well as I do. All that I was trying to say was +that I don't suppose that the judge had ever spoken a cross word to +Zena in his life.--Oh, he threw her novel over the grape-vine, I +don't deny that, but then why on earth should a girl read trash like +the Errant Quest of the Palladin Pilgrim, and the Life of Sir +Galahad, when the house was full of good reading like The Life of Sir +John A. Macdonald, and Pioneer Days in Tecumseh Township? + + +Still, what I mean is that the judge never spoke harshly to Zena, +except perhaps under extreme provocation; and I am quite sure that he +never, never had to Neil. But then what father ever would want to +speak angrily to such a boy as Neil Pepperleigh? The judge took no +credit himself for that; the finest grown boy in the whole county and +so broad and big that they took him into the Missinaba Horse when he +was only seventeen. And clever,--so clever that he didn't need to +study; so clever that he used to come out at the foot of the class in +mathematics at the Mariposa high school through sheer surplus of +brain power. I've heard the judge explain it a dozen times. Why, +Neil was so clever that he used to be able to play billiards at the +Mariposa House all evening when the other boys had to stay at home +and study. + +Such a powerful looking fellow, too! Everybody in Mariposa remembers +how Neil Pepperleigh smashed in the face of Peter McGinnis, the +Liberal organizer, at the big election--you recall it--when the old +Macdonald Government went out. Judge Pepperleigh had to try him for +it the next morning--his own son. They say there never was such a +scene even in the Mariposa court. There was, I believe, something +like it on a smaller scale in Roman history, but it wasn't half as +dramatic. I remember Judge Pepperleigh leaning forward to pass the +sentence,--for a judge is bound, you know, by his oath,--and how +grave he looked and yet so proud and happy, like a man doing his duty +and sustained by it, and he said: + +"My boy, you are innocent. You smashed in Peter McGinnis's face, but +you did it without criminal intent. You put a face on him, by +Jehoshaphat! that he won't lose for six months, but you did it +without evil purpose or malign design. My boy, look up! Give me your +hand! You leave this court without a stain upon your name." + +They said it was one of the most moving scenes ever enacted in the +Mariposa Court. + + +But the strangest thing is that if the judge had known what every one +else in Mariposa knew, it would have broken his heart. If he could +have seen Neil with the drunken flush on his face in the billiard +room of the Mariposa House,--if he had known, as every one else did, +that Neil was crazed with drink the night he struck the Liberal +organizer when the old Macdonald Government went out,--if he could +have known that even on that last day Neil was drunk when he rode +with the Missinaba Horse to the station to join the Third Contingent +for the war, and all the street of the little town was one great roar +of people-- + +But the judge never knew, and now he never will. For if you could +find it in the meanness of your soul to tell him, it would serve no +purpose now except to break his heart, and there would rise up to +rebuke you the pictured vision of an untended grave somewhere in the +great silences of South Africa. + +Did I say above, or seem to imply, that the judge sometimes spoke +harshly to his wife? Or did you gather for a minute that her lot was +one to lament over or feel sorry for? If so, it just shows that you +know nothing about such things, and that marriage, at least as it +exists in Mariposa, is a sealed book to you. You are as ignorant as +Miss Spiffkins, the biology teacher at the high school, who always +says how sorry she is for Mrs. Pepperleigh. You get that impression +simply because the judge howled like an Algonquin Indian when he saw +the sprinkler running on the lawn. But are you sure you know the +other side of it? Are you quite sure when you talk like Miss +Spiffkins does about the rights of it, that you are taking all things +into account? You might have thought differently perhaps of the +Pepperleighs, anyway, if you had been there that evening when the +judge came home to his wife with one hand pressed to his temple and +in the other the cablegram that said that Neil had been killed in +action in South Africa. That night they sat together with her hand in +his, just as they had sat together thirty years ago when he was a law +student in the city. + +Go and tell Miss Spiffkins that! Hydrangeas,--canaries,-- +temper,--blazes! What does Miss Spiffkins know about it all? + +But in any case, if you tried to tell Judge Pepperleigh about Neil +now he wouldn't believe it. He'd laugh it to scorn. That is Neil's +picture, in uniform, hanging in the dining-room beside the Fathers of +Confederation. That military-looking man in the picture beside him is +General Kitchener, whom you may perhaps have heard of, for he was +very highly spoken of in Neil's letters. All round the room, in fact, +and still more in the judge's library upstairs, you will see pictures +of South Africa and the departure of the Canadians (there are none of +the return), and of Mounted Infantry and of Unmounted Cavalry and a +lot of things that only soldiers and the fathers of soldiers know +about. + +So you can realize that for a fellow who isn't military, and who +wears nothing nearer to a uniform than a daffodil tennis blazer, the +judge's house is a devil of a house to come to. + +I think you remember young Mr. Pupkin, do you not? I have referred to +him several times already as the junior teller in the Exchange Bank. +But if you know Mariposa at all you have often seen him. You have +noticed him, I am sure, going for the bank mail in the morning in an +office suit effect of clinging grey with a gold necktie pin shaped +like a riding whip. You have seen him often enough going down to the +lake front after supper, in tennis things, smoking a cigarette and +with a paddle and a crimson canoe cushion under his arm. You have +seen him entering Dean Drone's church in a top hat and a long frock +coat nearly to his feet. You have seen him, perhaps, playing poker in +Peter Glover's room over the hardware store and trying to look as if +he didn't hold three aces,--in fact, giving absolutely no sign of it +beyond the wild flush in his face and the fact that his hair stands +on end. + +That kind of reticence is a thing you simply have to learn in +banking. I mean, if you've got to be in a position where you know for +a fact that the Mariposa Packing Company's account is overdrawn by +sixty-four dollars, and yet daren't say anything about it, not even +to the girls that you play tennis with,--I don't say, not a casual +hint as a reference, but not really tell them, not, for instance, +bring down the bank ledger to the tennis court and show them,--you +learn a sort of reticence and self-control that people outside of +banking circles never can attain. + +Why, I've known Pupkin at the Fireman's Ball lean against the wall in +his dress suit and talk away to Jim Eliot, the druggist, without +giving the faintest hint or indication that Eliot's note for +twenty-seven dollars had been protested that very morning. Not a hint +of it. I don't say he didn't mention it, in a sort of way, in the +supper room, just to one or two, but I mean there was nothing in the +way he leant up against the wall to suggest it. + +But, however, I don't mention that as either for or against Mr. +Pupkin. That sort of thing is merely the A B C of banking, as he +himself told me when explaining why it was that he hesitated to +divulge the exact standing of the Mariposa Carriage Company. Of +course, once you get past the A B C you can learn a lot that is +mighty interesting. + +So I think that if you know Mariposa and understand even the +rudiments of banking, you are perfectly acquainted with Mr. Pupkin. +What? You remember him as being in love with Miss Lawson, the high +school teacher? In love with HER? What a ridiculous idea. You mean +merely because on the night when the Mariposa Belle sank with every +soul on board, Pupkin put off from the town in a skiff to rescue +Miss Lawson. Oh, but you're quite wrong. That wasn't LOVE. I've +heard Pupkin explain it himself a dozen times. That sort of +thing,--paddling out to a sinking steamer at night in a crazy +skiff,--may indicate a sort of attraction, but not real love, not +what Pupkin came to feel afterwards. Indeed, when he began to think +of it, it wasn't even attraction, it was merely respect,--that's all +it was. And anyway, that was long before, six or seven months back, +and Pupkin admitted that at the time he was a mere boy. + + +Mr. Pupkin, I must explain, lived with Mallory Tompkins in rooms over +the Exchange Bank, on the very top floor, the third, with Mullins's +own rooms below them. Extremely comfortable quarters they were, with +two bedrooms and a sitting-room that was all fixed up with snowshoes +and tennis rackets on the walls and dance programmes and canoe club +badges and all that sort of thing. + +Mallory Tompkins was a young man with long legs and check trousers +who worked on the Mariposa Times-Herald. That was what gave him his +literary taste. He used to read Ibsen and that other Dutch +author--Bumstone Bumstone, isn't it?--and you can judge that he was a +mighty intellectual fellow. He was so intellectual that he was, as he +himself admitted, a complete eggnostic. He and Pupkin used to have +the most tremendous arguments about creation and evolution, and how +if you study at a school of applied science you learn that there's no +hell beyond the present life. + +Mallory Tompkins used to prove absolutely that the miracles were only +electricity, and Pupkin used to admit that it was an awfully good +argument, but claimed that he had heard it awfully well answered in a +sermon, though unfortunately he had forgotten how. + +Tompkins used to show that the flood was contrary to geology, and +Pupkin would acknowledge that the point was an excellent one, but +that he had read a book,--the title of which he ought to have written +down,--which explained geology away altogether. + +Mallory Tompkins generally got the best of the merely logical side of +the arguments, but Pupkin--who was a tremendous Christian--was much +stronger in the things he had forgotten. So the discussions often +lasted till far into the night, and Mr. Pupkin would fall asleep and +dream of a splendid argument, which would have settled the whole +controversy, only unfortunately he couldn't recall it in the morning. + +Of course, Pupkin would never have thought of considering himself on +an intellectual par with Mallory Tompkins. That would have been +ridiculous. Mallory Tompkins had read all sorts of things and had +half a mind to write a novel himself--either that or a play. All he +needed, he said, was to have a chance to get away somewhere by +himself and think. Every time he went away to the city Pupkin +expected that he might return with the novel all finished; but though +he often came back with his eyes red from thinking, the novel as yet +remained incomplete. + +Meantime, Mallory Tompkins, as I say, was a mighty intellectual +fellow. You could see that from the books on the bamboo bookshelves +in the sitting-room. There was, for instance, the "Encyclopaedia +Metropolitana" in forty volumes, that he bought on the instalment +plan for two dollars a month. Then when they took that away, there +was the "History of Civilization," in fifty volumes at fifty cents a +week for fifty years. Tompkins had read in it half-way through the +Stone Age before they took it from him. After that there was the +"Lives of the Painters," one volume at a time--a splendid thing in +which you could read all about Aahrens, and Aachenthal, and Aax and +men of that class. + +After all, there's nothing like educating oneself. Mallory Tompkins +knew about the opening period of all sorts of things, and in regard +to people whose names began with "A" you couldn't stick him. + +I don't mean that he and Mr. Pupkin lived a mere routine of studious +evenings. That would be untrue. Quite often their time was spent in +much less commendable ways than that, and there were poker parties in +their sitting-room that didn't break up till nearly midnight. +Card-playing, after all, is a slow business, unless you put money on +it, and, besides, if you are in a bank and are handling money all +day, gambling has a fascination. + +I've seen Pupkin and Mallory Tompkins and Joe Milligan, the dentist, +and Mitchell the ticket agent, and the other "boys" sitting round the +table with matches enough piled up in front of them to stock a +factory. Ten matches counted for one chip and ten chips made a +cent--so you see they weren't merely playing for the fun of the +thing. Of course it's a hollow pleasure. You realize that when you +wake up at night parched with thirst, ten thousand matches to the +bad. But banking is a wild life and everybody knows it. + +Sometimes Pupkin would swear off and keep away from the cursed thing +for weeks, and then perhaps he'd see by sheer accident a pile of +matches on the table, or a match lying on the floor and it would +start the craze in him. I am using his own words--a "craze"--that's +what he called it when he told Miss Lawson all about it, and she +promised to cure him of it. She would have, too. Only, as I say, +Pupkin found that what he had mistaken for attraction was only +respect. And there's no use worrying a woman that you respect about +your crazes. + + +It was from Mallory Tompkins that Pupkin learned all about the +Mariposa people, because Pupkin came from away off--somewhere down in +the Maritime Provinces--and didn't know a soul. Mallory Tompkins used +to tell him about Judge Pepperleigh, and what a wonderfully clever +man he was and how he would have been in the Supreme Court for +certain if the Conservative Government had stayed in another fifteen +or twenty years instead of coming to a premature end. He used to talk +so much about the Pepperleighs, that Pupkin was sick of the very +name. But just as soon as he had seen Zena Pepperleigh he couldn't +hear enough of them. He would have talked with Tompkins for hours +about the judge's dog Rover. And as for Zena, if he could have +brought her name over his lips, he would have talked of her forever. + +He first saw her--by one of the strangest coincidences in the +world--on the Main Street of Mariposa. If he hadn't happened to be +going up the street and she to be coming down it, the thing wouldn't +have happened. Afterwards they both admitted that it was one of the +most peculiar coincidences they ever heard of. Pupkin owned that he +had had the strangest feeling that morning as if something were going +to happen--a feeling not at all to be classed with the one of which +he had once spoken to Miss Lawson, and which was, at the most, a mere +anticipation of respect. + +But, as I say, Pupkin met Zena Pepperleigh on the 26th of June, at +twenty-five minutes to eleven. And at once the whole world changed. +The past was all blotted out. Even in the new forty volume edition +of the "Instalment Record of Humanity" that Mallory Tompkins had just +received--Pupkin wouldn't have bothered with it. + +She--that word henceforth meant Zena--had just come back from her +boarding-school, and of all times of year coming back from a +boarding-school and for wearing a white shirt waist and a crimson tie +and for carrying a tennis racket on the stricken street of a +town--commend me to the month of June in Mariposa. + +And, for Pupkin, straight away the whole town was irradiated with +sunshine, and there was such a singing of the birds, and such a +dancing of the rippled waters of the lake, and such a kindliness in +the faces of all the people, that only those who have lived in +Mariposa, and been young there, can know at all what he felt. + +The simple fact is that just the moment he saw Zena Pepperleigh, +Mr. Pupkin was clean, plumb, straight, flat, absolutely in love with +her. + +Which fact is so important that it would be folly not to close the +chapter and think about it. + + + +EIGHT + +The Fore-ordained Attachment of Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin + +Zena Pepperleigh used to sit reading novels on the piazza of the +judge's house, half hidden by the Virginia creepers. At times the +book would fall upon her lap and there was such a look of unstilled +yearning in her violet eyes that it did not entirely disappear even +when she picked up the apple that lay beside her and took another +bite out of it. + +With hands clasped she would sit there dreaming all the beautiful +day-dreams of girlhood. When you saw that faraway look in her eyes, +it meant that she was dreaming that a plumed and armoured knight was +rescuing her from the embattled keep of a castle beside the Danube. +At other times she was being borne away by an Algerian corsair over +the blue waters of the Mediterranean and was reaching out her arms +towards France to say farewell to it. + +Sometimes when you noticed a sweet look of resignation that seemed to +rest upon her features, it meant that Lord Ronald de Chevereux was +kneeling at her feet, and that she was telling him to rise, that her +humbler birth must ever be a bar to their happiness, and Lord Ronald +was getting into an awful state about it, as English peers do at the +least suggestion of anything of the sort. + +Or, if it wasn't that, then her lover had just returned to her side, +tall and soldierly and sunburned, after fighting for ten years in the +Soudan for her sake, and had come back to ask her for her answer and +to tell her that for ten years her face had been with him even in the +watches of the night. He was asking her for a sign, any kind of +sign,--ten years in the Soudan entitles them to a sign,--and Zena was +plucking a white rose, just one, from her hair, when she would hear +her father's step on the piazza and make a grab for the Pioneers of +Tecumseh Township, and start reading it like mad. + +She was always, as I say, being rescued and being borne away, and +being parted, and reaching out her arms to France and to Spain, and +saying good-bye forever to Valladolid or the old grey towers of +Hohenbranntwein. + +And I don't mean that she was in the least exceptional or romantic, +because all the girls in Mariposa were just like that. An Algerian +corsair could have come into the town and had a dozen of them for the +asking, and as for a wounded English officer,--well, perhaps it's +better not to talk about it outside or the little town would become a +regular military hospital. + +Because, mind you, the Mariposa girls are all right. You've only to +look at them to realize that. You see, you can get in Mariposa a +print dress of pale blue or pale pink for a dollar twenty that looks +infinitely better than anything you ever see in the city,--especially +if you can wear with it a broad straw hat and a background of maple +trees and the green grass of a tennis court. And if you remember, +too, that these are cultivated girls who have all been to the +Mariposa high school and can do decimal fractions, you will +understand that an Algerian corsair would sharpen his scimitar at the +very sight of them. + +Don't think either that they are all dying to get married; because +they are not. I don't say they wouldn't take an errant knight, or a +buccaneer or a Hungarian refugee, but for the ordinary marriages of +ordinary people they feel nothing but a pitying disdain. So it is +that each one of them in due time marries an enchanted prince and +goes to live in one of the little enchanted houses in the lower part +of the town. + +I don't know whether you know it, but you can rent an enchanted house +in Mariposa for eight dollars a month, and some of the most +completely enchanted are the cheapest. As for the enchanted princes, +they find them in the strangest places, where you never expected to +see them, working--under a spell, you understand,--in drug-stores and +printing offices, and even selling things in shops. But to be able to +find them you have first to read ever so many novels about Sir +Galahad and the Errant Quest and that sort of thing. + + +Naturally then Zena Pepperleigh, as she sat on the piazza, dreamed of +bandits and of wounded officers and of Lord Ronalds riding on +foam-flecked chargers. But that she ever dreamed of a junior bank +teller in a daffodil blazer riding past on a bicycle, is pretty hard +to imagine. So, when Mr. Pupkin came tearing past up the slope of +Oneida Street at a speed that proved that he wasn't riding there +merely to pass the house, I don't suppose that Zena Pepperleigh was +aware of his existence. + +That may be a slight exaggeration. She knew, perhaps, that he was the +new junior teller in the Exchange Bank and that he came from the +Maritime Provinces, and that nobody knew who his people were, and +that he had never been in a canoe in his life till he came to +Mariposa, and that he sat four pews back in Dean Drone's church, and +that his salary was eight hundred dollars. Beyond that, she didn't +know a thing about him. She presumed, however, that the reason why he +went past so fast was because he didn't dare to go slow. + +This, of course, was perfectly correct. Ever since the day when Mr. +Pupkin met Zena in the Main Street he used to come past the house on +his bicycle just after bank hours. He would have gone past twenty +times a day but he was afraid to. As he came up Oneida Street, he +used to pedal faster and faster,--he never meant to, but he couldn't +help it,--till he went past the piazza where Zena was sitting at an +awful speed with his little yellow blazer flying in the wind. In a +second he had disappeared in a buzz and a cloud of dust, and the +momentum of it carried him clear out into the country for miles and +miles before he ever dared to pause or look back. + +Then Mr. Pupkin would ride in a huge circuit about the country, +trying to think he was looking at the crops, and sooner or later his +bicycle would be turned towards the town again and headed for Oneida +Street, and would get going quicker and quicker and quicker, till the +pedals whirled round with a buzz and he came past the judge's house +again, like a bullet out of a gun. He rode fifteen miles to pass the +house twice, and even then it took all the nerve that he had. + +The people on Oneida Street thought that Mr. Pupkin was crazy, but +Zena Pepperleigh knew that he was not. Already, you see, there was a +sort of dim parallel between the passing of the bicycle and the last +ride of Tancred the Inconsolable along the banks of the Danube. + +I have already mentioned, I think, how Mr. Pupkin and Zena +Pepperleigh first came to know one another. Like everything else +about them, it was a sheer matter of coincidence, quite inexplicable +unless you understand that these things are fore-ordained. + +That, of course, is the way with fore-ordained affairs and that's +where they differ from ordinary love. + + +I won't even try to describe how Mr. Pupkin felt when he first spoke +with Zena and sat beside her as they copied out the "endless chain" +letter asking for ten cents. They wrote out, as I said, no less than +eight of the letters between them, and they found out that their +handwritings were so alike that you could hardly tell them apart, +except that Pupkin's letters were round and Zena's letters were +pointed and Pupkin wrote straight up and down and Zena wrote on a +slant. Beyond that the writing was so alike that it was the strangest +coincidence in the world. Of course when they made figures it was +different and Pupkin explained to Zena that in the bank you have to +be able to make a seven so that it doesn't look like a nine. + +So, as I say, they wrote the letters all afternoon and when it was +over they walked up Oneida Street together, ever so slowly. When they +got near the house, Zena asked Pupkin to come in to tea, with such an +easy off-hand way that you couldn't have told that she was half an +hour late and was taking awful chances on the judge. Pupkin hadn't +had time to say yes before the judge appeared at the door, just as +they were stepping up on to the piazza, and he had a table napkin in +his hand and the dynamite sparks were flying from his spectacles as +he called out: + +"Great heaven! Zena, why in everlasting blazes can't you get in to +tea at a Christian hour?" + +Zena gave one look of appeal to Pupkin, and Pupkin looked one glance +of comprehension, and turned and fled down Oneida Street. And if the +scene wasn't quite as dramatic as the renunciation of Tancred the +Troubadour, it at least had something of the same elements in it. + +Pupkin walked home to his supper at the Mariposa House on air, and +that evening there was a gentle distance in his manner towards Sadie, +the dining-room girl, that I suppose no bank clerk in Mariposa ever +showed before. It was like Sir Galahad talking with the tire-women of +Queen Guinevere and receiving huckleberry pie at their hands. + +After that Mr. Pupkin and Zena Pepperleigh constantly met together. +They played tennis as partners on the grass court behind Dr. +Gallagher's house,--the Mariposa Tennis Club rent it, you remember, +for fifty cents a month,--and Pupkin used to perform perfect +prodigies of valour, leaping in the air to serve with his little body +hooked like a letter S. Sometimes, too, they went out on Lake +Wissanotti in the evening in Pupkin's canoe, with Zena sitting in the +bow and Pupkin paddling in the stern and they went out ever so far +and it was after dark and the stars were shining before they came +home. Zena would look at the stars and say how infinitely far away +they seemed, and Pupkin would realize that a girl with a mind like +that couldn't have any use for a fool such as him. Zena used to ask +him to point out the Pleiades and Jupiter and Ursa minor, and Pupkin +showed her exactly where they were. That impressed them both +tremendously, because Pupkin didn't know that Zena remembered the +names out of the astronomy book at her boarding-school, and Zena +didn't know that Pupkin simply took a chance on where the stars were. + +And ever so many times they talked so intimately that Pupkin came +mighty near telling her about his home in the Maritime Provinces and +about his father and mother, and then kicked himself that he hadn't +the manliness to speak straight out about it and take the +consequences. + +Please don't imagine from any of this that the course of Mr. Pupkin's +love ran smooth. On the contrary, Pupkin himself felt that it was +absolutely hopeless from the start. + +There were, it might be admitted, certain things that seemed to +indicate progress. + +In the course of the months of June and July and August, he had taken +Zena out in his canoe thirty-one times. Allowing an average of two +miles for each evening, Pupkin had paddled Zena sixty-two miles, or +more than a hundred thousand yards. That surely was something. + +He had played tennis with her on sixteen afternoons. Three times he +had left his tennis racket up at the judge's house in Zena's charge, +and once he had, with her full consent, left his bicycle there all +night. This must count for something. No girl could trifle with a man +to the extent of having his bicycle leaning against the verandah post +all night and mean nothing by it. + +More than that--he had been to tea at the judge's house fourteen +times, and seven times he had been asked by Lilian Drone to the +rectory when Zena was coming, and five times by Nora Gallagher to tea +at the doctor's house because Zena was there. + +Altogether he had eaten so many meals where Zena was that his meal +ticket at the Mariposa lasted nearly double its proper time, and the +face of Sadie, the dining-room girl, had grown to wear a look of +melancholy resignation; sadder than romance. + +Still more than that, Pupkin had bought for Zena, reckoning it +altogether, about two buckets of ice cream and perhaps half a bushel +of chocolate. Not that Pupkin grudged the expense of it. On the +contrary, over and above the ice cream and the chocolate he had +bought her a white waistcoat and a walking stick with a gold top, a +lot of new neckties and a pair of patent leather boots--that is, +they were all bought on account of her, which is the same thing. + +Add to all this that Pupkin and Zena had been to the Church of +England Church nearly every Sunday evening for two months, and one +evening they had even gone to the Presbyterian Church "for fun," +which, if you know Mariposa, you will realize to be a wild sort of +escapade that ought to speak volumes. + + +Yet in spite of this, Pupkin felt that the thing was hopeless: which +only illustrates the dreadful ups and downs, the wild alternations of +hope and despair that characterise an exceptional affair of this +sort. + +Yes, it was hopeless. + +Every time that Pupkin watched Zena praying in church, he knew that +she was too good for him. Every time that he came to call for her and +found her reading Browning and Omar Khayyam he knew that she was too +clever for him. And every time that he saw her at all he realized +that she was too beautiful for him. + +You see, Pupkin knew that he wasn't a hero. When Zena would clasp her +hands and talk rapturously about crusaders and soldiers and firemen +and heroes generally, Pupkin knew just where he came in. Not in it, +that was all. If a war could have broken out in Mariposa, or the +judge's house been invaded by the Germans, he might have had a +chance, but as it was--hopeless. + +Then there was Zena's father. Heaven knows Pupkin tried hard to +please the judge. He agreed with every theory that Judge Pepperleigh +advanced, and that took a pretty pliable intellect in itself. They +denounced female suffrage one day and they favoured it the next. One +day the judge would claim that the labour movement was eating out the +heart of the country, and the next day he would hold that the hope of +the world lay in the organization of the toiling masses. Pupkin +shifted his opinions like the glass in a kaleidoscope. Indeed, the +only things on which he was allowed to maintain a steadfast +conviction were the purity of the Conservative party of Canada and +the awful wickedness of the recall of judges. + +But with all that the judge was hardly civil to Pupkin. He hadn't +asked him to the house till Zena brought him there, though, as a +rule, all the bank clerks in Mariposa treated Judge Pepperleigh's +premises as their own. He used to sit and sneer at Pupkin after he +had gone till Zena would throw down the Pioneers of Tecumseh Township +in a temper and flounce off the piazza to her room. After which the +judge's manner would change instantly and he would relight his corn +cob pipe and sit and positively beam with contentment. In all of +which there was something so mysterious as to prove that Mr. Pupkin's +chances were hopeless. + +Nor was that all of it. Pupkin's salary was eight hundred dollars a +year and the Exchange Bank limit for marriage was a thousand. + +I suppose you are aware of the grinding capitalistic tyranny of the +banks in Mariposa whereby marriage is put beyond the reach of ever so +many mature and experienced men of nineteen and twenty and +twenty-one, who are compelled to go on eating on a meal ticket at the +Mariposa House and living over the bank to suit the whim of a group +of capitalists. + +Whenever Pupkin thought of this two hundred dollars he understood all +that it meant by social unrest. In fact, he interpreted all forms of +social discontent in terms of it. Russian Anarchism, German +Socialism, the Labour Movement, Henry George, Lloyd George,--he +understood the whole lot of them by thinking of his two hundred +dollars. + +When I tell you that at this period Mr. Pupkin read Memoirs of the +Great Revolutionists and even thought of blowing up Henry Mullins +with dynamite, you can appreciate his state of mind. + + +But not even by all these hindrances and obstacles to his love for +Zena Pepperleigh would Peter Pupkin have been driven to commit +suicide (oh, yes; he committed it three times, as I'm going to tell +you), had it not been for another thing that he knew stood once and +for all and in cold reality between him and Zena. + +He felt it in a sort of way, as soon as he knew her. Each time that +he tried to talk to her about his home and his father and mother and +found that something held him back, he realized more and more the +kind of thing that stood between them. Most of all did he realize it, +with a sudden sickness of heart, when he got word that his father and +mother wanted to come to Mariposa to see him and he had all he could +do to head them off from it. + +Why? Why stop them? The reason was, simple enough, that Pupkin was +ashamed of them, bitterly ashamed. The picture of his mother and +father turning up in Mariposa and being seen by his friends there and +going up to the Pepperleigh's house made him feel faint with shame. + +No, I don't say it wasn't wrong. It only shows what difference of +fortune, the difference of being rich and being poor, means in this +world. You perhaps have been so lucky that you cannot appreciate what +it means to feel shame at the station of your own father and mother. +You think it doesn't matter, that honesty and kindliness of heart are +all that counts. That only shows that you have never known some of +the bitterest feelings of people less fortunate than yourself. + +So it was with Mr. Pupkin. When he thought of his father and mother +turning up in Mariposa, his face reddened with unworthy shame. + +He could just picture the scene! He could see them getting out of +their Limousine touring car, with the chauffeur holding open the door +for them, and his father asking for a suite of rooms,--just think of +it, a suite of rooms!--at the Mariposa House. + +The very thought of it turned him ill. + +What! You have mistaken my meaning? Ashamed of them because they were +poor? Good heavens, no, but because they were rich! And not rich in +the sense in which they use the term in Mariposa, where a rich person +merely means a man who has money enough to build a house with a +piazza and to have everything he wants; but rich in the other +sense,--motor cars, Ritz hotels, steam yachts, summer islands and all +that sort of thing. + +Why, Pupkin's father,--what's the use of trying to conceal it any +longer?--was the senior partner in the law firm of Pupkin, Pupkin and +Pupkin. If you know the Maritime Provinces at all, you've heard of +the Pupkins. The name is a household word from Chedabucto to +Chidabecto. And, for the matter of that, the law firm and the fact +that Pupkin senior had been an Attorney General was the least part of +it. Attorney General! Why, there's no money in that! It's no better +than the Senate. No, no, Pupkin senior, like so many lawyers, was +practically a promoter, and he blew companies like bubbles, and when +he wasn't in the Maritime Provinces he was in Boston and New York +raising money and floating loans, and when they had no money left in +New York he floated it in London: and when he had it, he floated on +top of it big rafts of lumber on the Miramichi and codfish on the +Grand Banks and lesser fish in the Fundy Bay. You've heard perhaps of +the Tidal Transportation Company, and Fundy Fisheries Corporation, +and the Paspebiac Pulp and Paper Unlimited? Well, all of those were +Pupkin senior under other names. So just imagine him in Mariposa! +Wouldn't he be utterly foolish there? Just imagine him meeting Jim +Eliot and treating him like a druggist merely because he ran a drug +store! or speaking to Jefferson Thorpe as if he were a barber simply +because he shaved for money! Why, a man like that could ruin young +Pupkin in Mariposa in half a day, and Pupkin knew it. + +That wouldn't matter so much, but think of the Pepperleighs and +Zena! Everything. would be over with them at once. Pupkin knew just +what the judge thought of riches and luxuries. How often had he heard +the judge pass sentences of life imprisonment on Pierpont Morgan and +Mr. Rockefeller. How often had Pupkin heard him say that any man who +received more than three thousand dollars a year (that was the +judicial salary in the Missinaba district) was a mere robber, unfit +to shake the hand of an honest man. Bitter! I should think he was! +He was not so bitter, perhaps, as Mr. Muddleson, the principal of the +Mariposa high school, who said that any man who received more than +fifteen hundred dollars was a public enemy. He was certainly not so +bitter as Trelawney, the post-master, who said that any man who got +from society more than thirteen hundred dollars (apart from a +legitimate increase in recognition of a successful election) was a +danger to society. Still, he was bitter. They all were in Mariposa. +Pupkin could just imagine how they would despise his father! + +And Zena! That was the worst of all. How often had, Pupkin heard her +say that she simply hated diamonds wouldn't wear them, despised them, +wouldn't give a thank you for a whole tiara of them! As for motor +cars and steam yachts,--well, it was pretty plain that that sort of +thing had no chance with Zena Pepperleigh. Why, she had told Pupkin +one night in the canoe that she would only marry a man who was poor +and had his way to make and would hew down difficulties for her sake. +And when Pupkin couldn't answer the argument she was quite cross and +silent all the way home. + + +What was Peter Pupkin doing, then, at eight hundred dollars in a bank +in Mariposa? If you ask that, it means that you know nothing of the +life of the Maritime Provinces and the sturdy temper of the people. I +suppose there are no people in the world who hate luxury and +extravagance and that sort of thing quite as much as the Maritime +Province people, and, of them, no one hated luxury more than Pupkin +senior. + +Don't mistake the man. He wore a long sealskin coat in winter, yes; +but mark you, not as a matter of luxury, but merely as a question of +his lungs. He smoked, I admit it, a thirty-five cent cigar, not +because he preferred it, but merely through a delicacy of the thorax +that made it imperative. He drank champagne at lunch, I concede the +point, not in the least from the enjoyment of it, but simply on +account of a peculiar affection of the tongue and lips that +positively dictated it. His own longing--and his wife shared it--was +for the simple, simple life--an island somewhere, with birds and +trees. They had bought three or four islands--one in the St. +Lawrence, and two in the Gulf, and one off the coast of +Maine--looking for this sort of thing. Pupkin senior often said that +he wanted to have some place that would remind him of the little old +farm up the Aroostook where he was brought up. He often bought little +old farms, just to try them, but they always turned out to be so near +a city that he cut them into real estate lots, without even having +had time to look at them. + +But--and this is where the emphasis lay--in the matter of luxury for +his only son, Peter, Pupkin senior was a Maritime Province man right +to the core, with all the hardihood of the United Empire Loyalists +ingrained in him. No luxury for that boy! No, sir! From his +childhood, Pupkin senior had undertaken, at the least sign of luxury, +to "tan it out of him," after the fashion still in vogue in the +provinces. Then he sent him to an old-fashioned school to get it +"thumped out of him," and after that he had put him for a year on a +Nova Scotia schooner to get it "knocked out of him." If, after all +that, young Pupkin, even when he came to Mariposa, wore cameo pins +and daffodil blazers, and broke out into ribbed silk saffron ties on +pay day, it only shows that the old Adam still needs further tanning +even in the Maritime Provinces. + +Young Pupkin, of course, was to have gone into law. That was his +father's cherished dream and would have made the firm Pupkin, Pupkin, +Pupkin, and Pupkin, as it ought to have been. But young Peter was +kept out of the law by the fool system of examinations devised since +his father's time. Hence there was nothing for it but to sling him +into a bank; "sling him" was, I think, the expression. So his father +decided that if Pupkin was to be slung, he should be slung good and +far--clean into Canada (you know the way they use that word in the +Maritime Provinces). And to sling Pupkin he called in the services of +an old friend, a man after his own heart, just as violent as himself, +who used to be at the law school in the city with Pupkin senior +thirty years ago. So this friend, who happened to live in Mariposa, +and who was a violent man, said at once: "Edward, by Jehoshaphat! +send the boy up here." + +So that is how Pupkin came to Mariposa. And if, when he got there, +his father's friend gave no sign, and treated the boy with roughness +and incivility, that may have been, for all I know, a continuation of +the "tanning" process of the Maritime people. + +Did I mention that the Pepperleigh family, generations ago, had taken +up land near the Aroostook, and that it was from there the judge's +father came to Tecumseh township? Perhaps not, but it doesn't matter. + +But surely after such reminiscences as these the awful things that +are impending over Mr. Pupkin must be kept for another chapter. + + + +NINE + +The Mariposa Bank Mystery + +Suicide is a thing that ought not to be committed without very +careful thought. It often involves serious consequences, and in some +cases brings pain to others than oneself. + +I don't say that there is no justification for it. There often is. +Anybody who has listened to certain kinds of music, or read certain +kinds of poetry, or heard certain kinds of performances upon the +concertina, will admit that there are some lives which ought not to +be continued, and that even suicide has its brighter aspects. + +But to commit suicide on grounds of love is at the best a very +dubious experiment. I know that in this I am expressing an opinion +contrary to that of most true lovers who embrace suicide on the +slightest provocation as the only honourable termination of an +existence that never ought to have begun. + +I quite admit that there is a glamour and a sensation about the thing +which has its charm, and that there is nothing like it for causing a +girl to realize the value of the heart that she has broken and which +breathed forgiveness upon her at the very moment when it held in its +hand the half-pint of prussic acid that was to terminate its beating +for ever. + +But apart from the general merits of the question, I suppose there +are few people, outside of lovers, who know what it is to commit +suicide four times in five weeks. + +Yet this was what happened to Mr. Pupkin, of the Exchange Bank of +Mariposa. + +Ever since he had known Zena Pepperleigh he had realized that his +love for her was hopeless. She was too beautiful for him and too good +for him; her father hated him and her mother despised him; his salary +was too small and his own people were too rich. + +If you add to all that that he came up to the judge's house one night +and found a poet reciting verses to Zena, you will understand the +suicide at once. It was one of those regular poets with a solemn +jackass face, and lank parted hair and eyes like puddles of molasses. +I don't know how he came there--up from the city, probably--but +there he was on the Pepperleighs' verandah that August evening. He +was reciting poetry--either Tennyson's or Shelley's, or his own, you +couldn't tell--and about him sat Zena with her hands clasped and Nora +Gallagher looking at the sky and Jocelyn Drone gazing into infinity, +and a little tubby woman looking at the poet with her head falling +over sideways--in fact, there was a whole group of them. + + +I don't know what it is about poets that draws women to them in this +way. But everybody knows that a poet has only to sit and saw the air +with his hands and recite verses in a deep stupid voice, and all the +women are crazy over him. Men despise him and would kick him off the +verandah if they dared, but the women simply rave over him. + +So Pupkin sat there in the gloom and listened to this poet reciting +Browning and he realized that everybody understood it but him. He +could see Zena with her eyes fixed on the poet as if she were hanging +on to every syllable (she was; she needed to), and he stood it just +about fifteen minutes and then slid off the side of the verandah and +disappeared without even saying good-night. + +He walked straight down Oneida Street and along the Main Street just +as hard as he could go. There was only one purpose in his +mind,--suicide. He was heading straight for Jim Eliot's drug store on +the main corner and his idea was to buy a drink of chloroform and +drink it and die right there on the spot. + +As Pupkin walked down the street, the whole thing was so vivid in his +mind that he could picture it to the remotest detail. He could even +see it all in type, in big headings in the newspapers of the +following day: + +APPALLING SUICIDE. PETER PUPKIN POISONED. + +He perhaps hoped that the thing might lead to some kind of public +enquiry and that the question of Browning's poetry and whether it is +altogether fair to allow of its general circulation would be fully +ventilated in the newspapers. + +Thinking of that, Pupkin came to the main corner. + +On a warm August evening the drug store of Mariposa, as you know, is +all a blaze of lights. You can hear the hissing of the soda-water +fountain half a block away, and inside the store there are ever so +many people--boys and girls and old people too--all drinking +sarsaparilla and chocolate sundaes and lemon sours and foaming drinks +that you take out of long straws. There is such a laughing and a +talking as you never heard, and the girls are all in white and pink +and cambridge blue, and the soda fountain is of white marble with +silver taps, and it hisses and sputters, and Jim Eliot and his +assistant wear white coats with red geraniums in them, and it's just +as gay as gay. + +The foyer of the opera in Paris may be a fine sight, but I doubt if +it can compare with the inside of Eliot's drug store in Mariposa--for +real gaiety and joy of living. + +This night the store was especially crowded because it was a Saturday +and that meant early closing for all the hotels, except, of course, +Smith's. So as the hotels were shut, the people were all in the drug +store, drinking like fishes. It just shows the folly of Local Option +and the Temperance Movement and all that. Why, if you shut the hotels +you simply drive the people to the soda fountains and there's more +drinking than ever, and not only of the men, too, but the girls and +young boys and children. I've seen little things of eight and nine +that had to be lifted up on the high stools at Eliot's drug store, +drinking great goblets of lemon soda, enough to burst them--brought +there by their own fathers, and why? Simply because the hotel bars +were shut. + +What's the use of thinking you can stop people drinking merely by +cutting off whiskey and brandy? The only effect is to drive them to +taking lemon sour and sarsaparilla and cherry pectoral and caroka +cordial and things they wouldn't have touched before. So in the long +run they drink more than ever. The point is that you can't prevent +people having a good time, no matter how hard you try. If they can't +have it with lager beer and brandy, they'll have it with plain soda +and lemon pop, and so the whole gloomy scheme of the temperance +people breaks down, anyway. + +But I was only saying that Eliot's drug store in Mariposa on a +Saturday night is the gayest and brightest spot in the world. + +And just imagine what a fool of a place to commit suicide in! + +Just imagine going up to the soda-water fountain and asking for five +cents' worth of chloroform and soda! Well, you simply can't, that's +all. + +That's the way Pupkin found it. You see, as soon as he came in, +somebody called out: "Hello, Pete!" and one or two others called: +"Hullo, Pup!" and some said: "How goes it?" and others: "How are you +toughing it?" and so on, because you see they had all been drinking +more or less and naturally they felt jolly and glad-hearted. + +So the upshot of it was that instead of taking chloroform, Pupkin +stepped up to the counter of the fountain and he had a bromo-seltzer +with cherry soda, and after that he had one of those aerated +seltzers, and then a couple of lemon seltzers and a bromo-phizzer. + +I don't know if you know the mental effect of a bromo-seltzer. + +But it's a hard thing to commit suicide on. + +You can't. + +You feel so buoyant. + +Anyway, what with the phizzing of the seltzer and the lights and the +girls, Pupkin began to feel so fine that he didn't care a cuss for +all the Browning in the world, and as for the poet--oh, to blazes +with him! What's poetry, anyway?--only rhymes. + +So, would you believe it, in about ten minutes Peter Pupkin was off +again and heading straight for the Pepperleighs' house, poet or no +poet, and, what was more to the point, he carried with him three +great bricks of Eliot's ice cream--in green, pink and brown layers. +He struck the verandah just at the moment when Browning was getting +too stale and dreary for words. His brain was all sizzling and jolly +with the bromo-seltzer, and when he fetched out the ice cream bricks +and Zena ran to get plates and spoons to eat it with, and Pupkin went +with her to help fetch them and they picked out the spoons together, +they were so laughing and happy that it was just a marvel. Girls, you +know, need no bromo-seltzer. They're full of it all the time. + +And as for the poet--well, can you imagine how Pupkin felt when Zena +told him that the poet was married, and that the tubby little woman +with her head on sideways was his wife? + +So they had the ice cream, and the poet ate it in bucketsful. Poets +always do. They need it. And after it the poet recited some stanzas +of his own and Pupkin saw that he had misjudged the man, because it +was dandy poetry, the very best. That night Pupkin walked home on air +and there was no thought of chloroform, and it turned out that he +hadn't committed suicide, but like all lovers he had commuted it. + + +I don't need to describe in full the later suicides of Mr. Pupkin, +because they were all conducted on the same plan and rested on +something the same reasons as above. + +Sometimes he would go down at night to the offices of the bank below +his bedroom and bring up his bank revolver in order to make an end of +himself with it. This, too, he could see headed up in the newspapers +as: + +BRILLIANT BOY BANKER BLOWS OUT BRAINS. + +But blowing your brains out is a noisy, rackety performance, and +Pupkin soon found that only special kinds of brains are suited for +it. So he always sneaked back again later in the night and put the +revolver in its place, deciding to drown himself instead. Yet every +time that he walked down to the Trestle Bridge over the Ossawippi he +found it was quite unsuitable for drowning--too high, and the water +too swift and black, and the rushes too gruesome--in fact, not at +all the kind of place for a drowning. + +Far better, he realized, to wait there on the railroad track and +throw himself under the wheels of the express and be done with it. +Yet, though Pupkin often waited in this way for the train, he was +never able to pick out a pair of wheels that suited him. Anyhow, it's +awfully hard to tell an express from a fast freight. + +I wouldn't mention these attempts at suicide if one of them hadn't +finally culminated in making Peter Pupkin a hero and solving for him +the whole perplexed entanglement of his love affair with Zena +Pepperleigh. Incidentally it threw him into the very centre of one of +the most impenetrable bank mysteries that ever baffled the ingenuity +of some of the finest legal talent that ever adorned one of the most +enterprising communities in the country. + +It happened one night, as I say, that Pupkin decided to go down into +the office of the bank and get his revolver and see if it would blow +his brains out. It was the night of the Firemen's Ball and Zena had +danced four times with a visitor from the city, a man who was in the +fourth year at the University and who knew everything. It was more +than Peter Pupkin could bear. Mallory Tompkins was away that night, +and when Pupkin came home he was all alone in the building, except +for Gillis, the caretaker, who lived in the extension at the back. + +He sat in his room for hours brooding. Two or three times he picked +up a book--he remembered afterwards distinctly that it was Kant's +Critique of Pure Reason--and tried to read it, but it seemed +meaningless and trivial. Then with a sudden access of resolution he +started from his chair and made his way down the stairs and into the +office room of the bank, meaning to get a revolver and kill himself +on the spot and let them find his body lying on the floor. + +It was then far on in the night and the empty building of the bank +was as still as death. Pupkin could hear the stairs creak under his +feet, and as he went he thought he heard another sound like the +opening or closing of a door. But it sounded not like the sharp +ordinary noise of a closing door but with a dull muffled noise as if +someone had shut the iron door of a safe in a room under the ground. +For a moment Pupkin stood and listened with his heart thumping +against his ribs. Then he kicked his slippers from his feet and +without a sound stole into the office on the ground floor and took +the revolver from his teller's desk. As he gripped it, he listened to +the sounds on the back-stairway and in the vaults below. + +I should explain that in the Exchange Bank of Mariposa the offices +are on the ground floor level with the street. Below this is another +floor with low dark rooms paved with flagstones, with unused office +desks and with piles of papers stored in boxes. On this floor are the +vaults of the bank, and lying in them in the autumn--the grain +season--there is anything from fifty to a hundred thousand dollars in +currency tied in bundles. There is no other light down there than the +dim reflection from the lights out on the street, that lies in +patches on the stone floor. + +I think as Peter Pupkin stood, revolver in hand, in the office of the +bank, he had forgotten all about the maudlin purpose of his first +coming. He had forgotten for the moment all about heroes and love +affairs, and his whole mind was focussed, sharp and alert, with the +intensity of the night-time, on the sounds that he heard in the vault +and on the back-stairway of the bank. + +Straight away, Pupkin knew what it meant as plainly as if it were +written in print. He had forgotten, I say, about being a hero and he +only knew that there was sixty thousand dollars in the vault of the +bank below, and that he was paid eight hundred dollars a year to look +after it. + +As Peter Pupkin stood there listening to the sounds in his stockinged +feet, his faced showed grey as ashes in the light that fell through +the window from the street. His heart beat like a hammer against his +ribs. But behind its beatings was the blood of four generations of +Loyalists, and the robber who would take that sixty thousand dollars +from the Mariposa bank must take it over the dead body of Peter +Pupkin, teller. + + +Pupkin walked down the stairs to the lower room, the one below the +ground with the bank vault in it, with as fine a step as any of his +ancestors showed on parade. And if he had known it, as he came down +the stairway in the front of the vault room, there was a man crouched +in the shadow of the passage way by the stairs at the back. This man, +too, held a revolver in his hand, and, criminal or not, his face was +as resolute as Pupkin's own. As he heard the teller's step on the +stair, he turned and waited in the shadow of the doorway without a +sound. + +There is no need really to mention all these details. They are only +of interest as showing how sometimes a bank teller in a corded +smoking jacket and stockinged feet may be turned into such a hero as +even the Mariposa girls might dream about. + +All of this must have happened at about three o'clock in the night. +This much was established afterwards from the evidence of Gillis, the +caretaker. When he first heard the sounds he had looked at his watch +and noticed that it was half-past two; the watch he knew was +three-quarters of an hour slow three days before and had been gaining +since. The exact time at which Gillis heard footsteps in the bank +and started downstairs, pistol in hand, became a nice point +afterwards in the cross-examination. + +But one must not anticipate. Pupkin reached the iron door of the bank +safe, and knelt in front of it, feeling in the dark to find the +fracture of the lock. As he knelt, he heard a sound behind him, and +swung round on his knees and saw the bank robber in the half light of +the passage way and the glitter of a pistol in his hand. The rest was +over in an instant. Pupkin heard a voice that was his own, but that +sounded strange and hollow, call out: "Drop that, or I'll fire!" and +then just as he raised his revolver, there came a blinding flash of +light before his eyes, and Peter Pupkin, junior teller of the bank, +fell forward on the floor and knew no more. + + +At that point, of course, I ought to close down a chapter, or volume, +or, at least, strike the reader over the head with a sandbag to force +him to stop and think. In common fairness one ought to stop here and +count a hundred or get up and walk round a block, or, at any rate, +picture to oneself Peter Pupkin lying on the floor of the bank, +motionless, his arms distended, the revolver still grasped in his +hand. But I must go on. + +By half-past seven on the following morning it was known all over +Mariposa that Peter Pupkin the junior teller of the Exchange had been +shot dead by a bank robber in the vault of the building. It was known +also that Gillis, the caretaker, had been shot and killed at the foot +of the stairs, and that the robber had made off with fifty thousand +dollars in currency; that he had left a trail of blood on the +sidewalk and that the men were out tracking him with bloodhounds in +the great swamps to the north of the town. + +This, I say, and it is important to note it, was what they knew at +half-past seven. Of course as each hour went past they learned more +and more. At eight o'clock it was known that Pupkin was not dead, but +dangerously wounded in the lungs. At eight-thirty it was known that +he was not shot in the lungs, but that the ball had traversed the pit +of his stomach. + +At nine o'clock it was learned that the pit of Pupkin's stomach was +all right, but that the bullet had struck his right ear and carried +it away. Finally it was learned that his ear had not exactly been +carried away, that is, not precisely removed by the bullet, but that +it had grazed Pupkin's head in such a way that it had stunned him, +and if it had been an inch or two more to the left it might have +reached his brain. This, of course, was just as good as being killed +from the point of view of public interest. + +Indeed, by nine o'clock Pupkin could be himself seen on the Main +Street with a great bandage sideways on his head, pointing out the +traces of the robber. Gillis, the caretaker, too, it was known by +eight, had not been killed. He had been shot through the brain, but +whether the injury was serious or not was only a matter of +conjecture. In fact, by ten o'clock it was understood that the bullet +from the robber's second shot had grazed the side of the caretaker's +head, but as far as could be known his brain was just as before. I +should add that the first report about the bloodstains and the swamp +and the bloodhounds turned out to be inaccurate. The stains may have +been blood, but as they led to the cellar way of Netley's store they +may have also been molasses, though it was argued, to be sure, that +the robber might well have poured molasses over the bloodstains from +sheer cunning. + +It was remembered, too, that there were no bloodhounds in Mariposa, +although, mind you, there are any amount of dogs there. + +So you see that by ten o'clock in the morning the whole affair was +settling into the impenetrable mystery which it ever since remained. + +Not that there wasn't evidence enough. There was Pupkin's own story +and Gillis's story, and the stories of all the people who had heard +the shots and seen the robber (some said, the bunch of robbers) go +running past (others said, walking past), in the night. Apparently +the robber ran up and down half the streets of Mariposa before he +vanished. + +But the stories of Pupkin and Gillis were plain enough. Pupkin +related that he heard sounds in the bank and came downstairs just in +time to see the robber crouching in the passage way, and that the +robber was a large, hulking, villainous looking man, wearing a heavy +coat. Gillis told exactly the same story, having heard the noises at +the same time, except that he first described the robber as a small +thin fellow (peculiarly villainous looking, however, even in the +dark), wearing a short jacket; but on thinking it over, Gillis +realized that he had been wrong about the size of the criminal, and +that he was even bigger, if anything, than what Mr: Pupkin thought. +Gillis had fired at the robber; just at the same moment had Mr. +Pupkin. + +Beyond that, all was mystery, absolute and impenetrable. + +By eleven o'clock the detectives had come up from the city under +orders from the head of the bank. + + +I wish you could have seen the two detectives as they moved to and +fro in Mariposa--fine looking, stern, impenetrable men that they +were. They seemed to take in the whole town by instinct and so +quietly. They found their way to Mr. Smith's Hotel just as quietly as +if it wasn't design at all and stood there at the bar, picking up +scraps of conversation--you know the way detectives do it. +Occasionally they allowed one or two bystanders--confederates, +perhaps,--to buy a drink for them, and you could see from the way +they drank it that they were still listening for a clue. If there had +been the faintest clue in Smith's Hotel or in the Mariposa House or +in the Continental, those fellows would have been at it like a flash. + +To see them moving round the town that day--silent, massive, +imperturbable--gave one a great idea of their strange, dangerous +calling. They went about the town all day and yet in such a quiet +peculiar way that you couldn't have realized that they were working +at all. They ate their dinner together at Smith's cafe and took an +hour and a half over it to throw people off the scent. Then when they +got them off it, they sat and talked with Josh Smith in the back bar +to keep them off. Mr. Smith seemed to take to them right away. They +were men of his own size, or near it, and anyway hotel men and +detectives have a general affinity and share in the same impenetrable +silence and in their confidential knowledge of the weaknesses of the +public. + +Mr. Smith, too, was of great use to the detectives. "Boys," he said, +"I wouldn't ask too close as to what folks was out late at night: in +this town it don't do." + +When those two great brains finally left for the city on the +five-thirty, it was hard to realize that behind each grand, +impassible face a perfect vortex of clues was seething. + +But if the detectives were heroes, what was Pupkin? Imagine him with +his bandage on his head standing in front of the bank and talking of +the midnight robbery with that peculiar false modesty that only +heroes are entitled to use. + +I don't know whether you have ever been a hero, but for sheer +exhilaration there is nothing like it. And for Mr. Pupkin, who had +gone through life thinking himself no good, to be suddenly exalted +into the class of Napoleon Bonaparte and John Maynard and the Charge +of the Light Brigade--oh, it was wonderful. Because Pupkin was a +brave man now and he knew it and acquired with it all the brave man's +modesty. In fact, I believe he was heard to say that he had only done +his duty, and that what he did was what any other man would have +done: though when somebody else said: "That's so, when you come to +think of it," Pupkin turned on him that quiet look of the wounded +hero, bitterer than words. + +And if Pupkin had known that all of the afternoon papers in the city +reported him dead, he would have felt more luxurious still. + +That afternoon the Mariposa court sat in enquiry,--technically it +was summoned in inquest on the dead robber--though they hadn't found +the body--and it was wonderful to see them lining up the witnesses +and holding cross-examinations. There is something in the +cross-examination of great criminal lawyers like Nivens, of Mariposa, +and in the counter examinations of presiding judges like Pepperleigh +that thrills you to the core with the astuteness of it. + +They had Henry Mullins, the manager, on the stand for an hour and a +half, and the excitement was so breathless that you could have heard +a pin drop. Nivens took him on first. + +"What is your name?" he said. + +"Henry August Mullins." + +"What position do you hold?" + +"I am manager of the Exchange Bank." + +"When were you born?" + +"December 30, 1869." + +After that, Nivens stood looking quietly at Mullins. You could feel +that he was thinking pretty deeply before he shot the next question +at him. + +"Where did you go to school?" + +Mullins answered straight off: "The high school down home," and +Nivens thought again for a while and then asked: + +"How many boys were at the school?" + +"About sixty." + +"How many masters?" + +"About three." + +After that Nivens paused a long while and seemed to be digesting the +evidence, but at last an idea seemed to strike him and he said: + +"I understand you were not on the bank premises last night. Where +were you?" + +"Down the lake duck shooting." + +You should have seen the excitement in the court when Mullins said +this. The judge leaned forward in his chair and broke in at once. + +"Did you get any, Harry?" he asked. + +"Yes," Mullins said, "about six." + +"Where did you get them? What? In the wild rice marsh past the +river? You don't say so! Did you get them on the sit or how?" + +All of these questions were fired off at the witness from the court +in a single breath. In fact, it was the knowledge that the first +ducks of the season had been seen in the Ossawippi marsh that led to +the termination of the proceedings before the afternoon was a quarter +over. Mullins and George Duff and half the witnesses were off with +shotguns as soon as the court was cleared. + + +I may as well state at once that the full story of the robbery +of the bank of Mariposa never came to the light. A number of +arrests--mostly of vagrants and suspicious characters--were made, but +the guilt of the robbery was never brought home to them. One man was +arrested twenty miles away, at the other end of Missinaba county, +who not only corresponded exactly with the description of the robber, +but, in addition to this, had a wooden leg. Vagrants with one leg +are always regarded with suspicion in places like Mariposa, and +whenever a robbery or a murder happens they are arrested in batches. + +It was never even known just how much money was stolen from the bank. +Some people said ten thousand dollars, others more. The bank, no +doubt for business motives, claimed that the contents of the safe +were intact and that the robber had been foiled in his design. + +But none of this matters to the exaltation of Mr. Pupkin. Good +fortune, like bad, never comes in small instalments. On that +wonderful day, every good thing happened to Peter Pupkin at once. The +morning saw him a hero. At the sitting of the court, the judge +publicly told him that his conduct was fit to rank among the annals +of the pioneers of Tecumseh Township, and asked him to his house for +supper. At five o'clock he received the telegram of promotion from +the head office that raised his salary to a thousand dollars, and +made him not only a hero but a marriageable man. At six o'clock he +started up to the judge's house with his resolution nerved to the +most momentous step of his life. + +His mind was made up. + +He would do a thing seldom if ever done in Mariposa. He would propose +to Zena Pepperleigh. In Mariposa this kind of step, I say, is seldom +taken. The course of love runs on and on through all its stages of +tennis playing and dancing and sleigh riding, till by sheer notoriety +of circumstance an understanding is reached. To propose straight out +would be thought priggish and affected and is supposed to belong only +to people in books. + +But Pupkin felt that what ordinary people dare not do, heroes are +allowed to attempt. He would propose to Zena, and more than that, he +would tell her in a straight, manly way that he was rich and take the +consequences. + +And he did it. + +That night on the piazza, where the hammock hangs in the shadow of +the Virginia creeper, he did it. By sheer good luck the judge had +gone indoors to the library, and by a piece of rare good fortune Mrs. +Pepperleigh had gone indoors to the sewing room, and by a happy trick +of coincidence the servant was out and the dog was tied up--in fact, +no such chain of circumstances was ever offered in favour of mortal +man before. + +What Zena said--beyond saying yes--I do not know. I am sure that when +Pupkin told her of the money, she bore up as bravely as so fine a +girl as Zena would, and when he spoke of diamonds she said she would +wear them for his sake. + +They were saying these things and other things--ever so many other +things--when there was such a roar and a clatter up Oneida Street as +you never heard, and there came bounding up to the house one of the +most marvellous Limousine touring cars that ever drew up at the home +of a judge on a modest salary of three thousand dollars. When it +stopped there sprang from it an excited man in a long sealskin +coat--worn not for the luxury of it at all but from the sheer +chilliness of the autumn evening. And it was, as of course you know, +Pupkin's father. He had seen the news of his son's death in the +evening paper in the city. They drove the car through, so the +chauffeur said, in two hours and a quarter, and behind them there was +to follow a special trainload of detectives and emergency men, but +Pupkin senior had cancelled all that by telegram half way up when he +heard that Peter was still living. + +For a moment as his eye rested on young Pupkin you would almost have +imagined, had you not known that he came from the Maritime Provinces, +that there were tears in them and that he was about to hug his son to +his heart. But if he didn't hug Peter to his heart, he certainly did +within a few moments clasp Zena to it, in that fine fatherly way in +which they clasp pretty girls in the Maritime Provinces. The +strangest thing is that Pupkin senior seemed to understand the whole +situation without any explanations at all. + +Judge Pepperleigh, I think, would have shaken both of Pupkin senior's +arms off when he saw him; and when you heard them call one another +"Ned" and "Phillip" it made you feel that they were boys again +attending classes together at the old law school in the city. + +If Pupkin thought that his father wouldn't make a hit in Mariposa, it +only showed his ignorance. Pupkin senior sat there on the judge's +verandah smoking a corn cob pipe as if he had never heard of Havana +cigars in his life. In the three days that he spent in Mariposa that +autumn, he went in and out of Jeff Thorpe's barber shop and Eliot's +drug store, shot black ducks in the marsh and played poker every +evening at a hundred matches for a cent as if he had never lived any +other life in all his days. They had to send him telegrams enough to +fill a satchel to make him come away. + +So Pupkin and Zena in due course of time were married, and went to +live in one of the enchanted houses on the hillside in the newer part +of the town, where you may find them to this day. + +You may see Pupkin there at any time cutting enchanted grass on a +little lawn in as gaudy a blazer as ever. + +But if you step up to speak to him or walk with him into the +enchanted house, pray modulate your voice a little musical though it +is--for there is said to be an enchanted baby on the premises whose +sleep must not lightly be disturbed. + + + +TEN + +The Great Election in Missinaba County + +Don't ask me what election it was, whether Dominion or Provincial or +Imperial or Universal, for I scarcely know. + +It must, of course, have been going on in other parts of the country +as well, but I saw it all from Missinaba County which, with the town +of Mariposa, was, of course, the storm centre and focus point of the +whole turmoil. + +I only know that it was a huge election and that on it turned issues +of the most tremendous importance, such as whether or not Mariposa +should become part of the United States, and whether the flag that +had waved over the school house at Tecumseh Township for ten +centuries should be trampled under the hoof of an alien invader, and +whether Britons should be slaves, and whether Canadians should be +Britons, and whether the farming class would prove themselves +Canadians, and tremendous questions of that kind. + +And there was such a roar and a tumult to it, and such a waving of +flags and beating of drums and flaring of torchlights that such parts +of the election as may have been going on elsewhere than in Missinaba +county must have been quite unimportant and didn't really matter. + +Now that it is all over, we can look back at it without heat or +passion. We can see,--it's plain enough now,--that in the great +election Canada saved the British Empire, and that Missinaba saved +Canada and that the vote of the Third Concession of Tecumseh Township +saved Missinaba County, and that those of us who carried the third +concession,--well, there's no need to push it further. We prefer to +be modest about it. If we still speak of it, it is only quietly and +simply and not more than three or four times a day. + +But you can't understand the election at all, and the conventions and +the campaigns and the nominations and the balloting, unless you first +appreciate the peculiar complexion of politics in Mariposa. + +Let me begin at the beginning. Everybody in Mariposa is either a +Liberal or a Conservative or else is both. Some of the people are or +have been Liberals or Conservatives all their lives and are called +dyed-in-the-wool Grits or old-time Tories and things of that sort. +These people get from long training such a swift penetrating insight +into national issues that they can decide the most complicated +question in four seconds: in fact, just as soon as they grab the city +papers out of the morning mail, they know the whole solution of any +problem you can put to them. There are other people whose aim it is +to be broad-minded and judicious and who vote Liberal or Conservative +according to their judgment of the questions of the day. If their +judgment of these questions tells them that there is something in it +for them in voting Liberal, then they do so. But if not, they refuse +to be the slaves of a party or the henchmen of any political leader. +So that anybody looking for henches has got to keep away from them. + +But the one thing that nobody is allowed to do in Mariposa is to have +no politics. Of course there are always some people whose +circumstances compel them to say that they have no politics. But that +is easily understood. Take the case of Trelawney, the postmaster. +Long ago he was a letter carrier under the old Mackenzie Government, +and later he was a letter sorter under the old Macdonald Government, +and after that a letter stamper under the old Tupper Government, and +so on. Trelawney always says that he has no politics, but the truth +is that he has too many. + +So, too, with the clergy in Mariposa. They have no politics-- +absolutely none. Yet Dean Drone round election time always announces +as his text such a verse as: "Lo! is there not one righteous man in +Israel?" or: "What ho! is it not time for a change?" And that is a +signal for all the Liberal business men to get up and leave their +pews. + +Similarly over at the Presbyterian Church, the minister says that his +sacred calling will not allow him to take part in politics and that +his sacred calling prevents him from breathing even a word of +harshness against his fellow man, but that when it comes to the +elevation of the ungodly into high places in the commonwealth (this +means, of course, the nomination of the Conservative candidate) then +he's not going to allow his sacred calling to prevent him from saying +just what he thinks of it. And by that time, having pretty well +cleared the church of Conservatives, he proceeds to show from the +scriptures that the ancient Hebrews were Liberals to a man, except +those who were drowned in the flood or who perished, more or less +deservedly, in the desert. + +There are, I say, some people who are allowed to claim to have no +politics,--the office holders, and the clergy and the school teachers +and the hotel keepers. But beyond them, anybody in Mariposa who says +that he has no politics is looked upon as crooked, and people wonder +what it is that he is "out after." + +In fact, the whole town and county is a hive of politics, and people +who have only witnessed gatherings such as the House of Commons at +Westminster and the Senate at Washington and never seen a +Conservative Convention at Tecumseh Corners or a Liberal Rally at the +Concession school house, don't know what politics means. + +So you may imagine the excitement in Mariposa when it became known +that King George had dissolved the parliament of Canada and had sent +out a writ or command for Missinaba County to elect for him some +other person than John Henry Bagshaw because he no longer had +confidence in him. + +The king, of course, is very well known, very favourably known, in +Mariposa. Everybody remembers how he visited the town on his great +tour in Canada, and stopped off at the Mariposa station. Although he +was only a prince at the time, there was quite a big crowd down at +the depot and everybody felt what a shame it was that the prince had +no time to see more of Mariposa, because he would get such a false +idea of it, seeing only the station and the lumber yards. Still, they +all came to the station and all the Liberals and Conservatives mixed +together perfectly freely and stood side by side without any +distinction, so that the prince should not observe any party +differences among them. And he didn't,--you could see that he didn't. +They read him an address all about the tranquillity and loyalty of +the Empire, and they purposely left out any reference to the trouble +over the town wharf or the big row there had been about the location +of the new post-office. There was a general decent feeling that it +wouldn't be fair to disturb the prince with these things: later on, +as king, he would, of course, _have_ to know all about them, but +meanwhile it was better to leave him with the idea that his empire +was tranquil. + +So they deliberately couched the address in terms that were just as +reassuring as possible and the prince was simply delighted with it. I +am certain that he slept pretty soundly after hearing that address. +Why, you could see it taking effect even on his aides-de-camp and the +people round him, so imagine how the prince must have felt! + +I think in Mariposa they understand kings perfectly. Every time that +a king or a prince comes, they try to make him see the bright side of +everything and let him think that they're all united. Judge +Pepperleigh walked up and down arm in arm with Dr. Gallagher, the +worst Grit in the town, just to make the prince feel fine. + +So when they got the news that the king had lost confidence in John +Henry Bagshaw, the sitting member, they never questioned it a bit. +Lost confidence? All right, they'd elect him another right away. +They'd elect him half a dozen if he needed them. They don't mind; +they'd elect the whole town man after man rather than have the king +worried about it. + +In any case, all the Conservatives had been wondering for years +how the king and the governor-general and men like that had tolerated +such a man as Bagshaw so long. + +Missinaba County, I say, is a regular hive of politics, and not the +miserable, crooked, money-ridden politics of the cities, but the +straight, real old-fashioned thing that is an honour to the country +side. Any man who would offer to take a bribe or sell his convictions +for money, would be an object of scorn. I don't say they wouldn't +take money,--they would, of course, why not?--but if they did they +would take it in a straight fearless way and say nothing about it. +They might,--it's only human,--accept a job or a contract from the +government, but if they did, rest assured it would be in a broad +national spirit and not for the sake of the work itself. No, sir. +Not for a minute. + +Any man who wants to get the votes of the Missinaba farmers and the +Mariposa business men has got to persuade them that he's the right +man. If he can do that,--if he can persuade any one of them that he +is the right man and that all the rest know it, then they'll vote for +him. + +The division, I repeat, between the Liberals and the Conservatives, +is intense. Yet you might live for a long while in the town, between +elections, and never know it. It is only when you get to understand +the people that you begin to see that there is a cross division +running through them that nothing can ever remove. You gradually +become aware of fine subtle distinctions that miss your observation +at first. Outwardly, they are all friendly enough. For instance, Joe +Milligan the dentist is a Conservative, and has been for six years, +and yet he shares the same boat-house with young Dr. Gallagher, who +is a Liberal, and they even bought a motor boat between them. Pete +Glover and Alf McNichol were in partnership in the hardware and paint +store, though they belonged on different sides. + +But just as soon as elections drew near, the differences in politics +became perfectly apparent. Liberals and Conservatives drew away from +one another. Joe Milligan used the motor boat one Saturday and Dr. +Gallagher the next, and Pete Glover sold hardware on one side of the +store and Alf McNichol sold paint on the other. You soon realized +too that one of the newspapers was Conservative and the other was +Liberal, and that there was a Liberal drug store and a Conservative +drug store, and so on. Similarly round election time, the Mariposa +House was the Liberal Hotel, and the Continental Conservative, though +Mr. Smith's place, where they always put on a couple of extra bar +tenders, was what you might call Independent-Liberal-Conservative, +with a dash of Imperialism thrown in. Mr. Gingham, the undertaker, +was, as a natural effect of his calling, an advanced Liberal, but at +election time he always engaged a special assistant for embalming +Conservative customers. + +So now, I think, you understand something of the general political +surroundings of the great election in Missinaba County. + +John Henry Bagshaw was the sitting member, the Liberal member, for +Missinaba County. + +The Liberals called him the old war horse, and the old battle-axe, +and the old charger and the old champion and all sorts of things of +that kind. The Conservatives called him the old jackass and the old +army mule and the old booze fighter and the old grafter and the old +scoundrel. + +John Henry Bagshaw was, I suppose, one of the greatest political +forces in the world. He had flowing white hair crowned with a fedora +hat, and a smooth statesmanlike face which it cost the country +twenty-five cents a day to shave. + +Altogether the Dominion of Canada had spent over two thousand dollars +in shaving that face during the twenty years that Bagshaw had +represented Missinaba County. But the result had been well worth it. + +Bagshaw wore a long political overcoat that it cost the country +twenty cents a day to brush, and boots that cost the Dominion fifteen +cents every morning to shine. + +But it was money well spent. + +Bagshaw of Mariposa was one of the most representative men of the +age, and it's no wonder that he had been returned for the county for +five elections running, leaving the Conservatives nowhere. Just think +how representative he was. He owned two hundred acres out on the +Third Concession and kept two men working on it all the time to +prove that he was a practical farmer. They sent in fat hogs to the +Missinaba County Agricultural Exposition and the World's Fair every +autumn, and Bagshaw himself stood beside the pig pens with the +judges, and wore a pair of corduroy breeches and chewed a straw all +afternoon. After that if any farmer thought that he was not properly +represented in Parliament, it showed that he was an ass. + +Bagshaw owned a half share in the harness business and a quarter +share in the tannery and that made him a business man. He paid for a +pew in the Presbyterian Church and that represented religion in +Parliament. He attended college for two sessions thirty years ago, +and that represented education and kept him abreast with modern +science, if not ahead of it. He kept a little account in one bank and +a big account in the other, so that he was a rich man or a poor man +at the same time. + +Add to that that John Henry Bagshaw was perhaps the finest orator in +Mariposa. That, of course, is saying a great deal. There are speakers +there, lots of them that can talk two or three hours at a stretch, +but the old war horse could beat them all. They say that when John +Henry Bagshaw got well started, say after a couple of hours of talk, +he could speak as Pericles or Demosthenes or Cicero never could have +spoken. + +You could tell Bagshaw a hundred yards off as a member of the House +of Commons. He wore a pepper-and-salt suit to show that he came from +a rural constituency, and he wore a broad gold watch-chain with +dangling seals to show that he also represents a town. You could see +from his quiet low collar and white tie that his electorate were a +Godfearing, religious people, while the horseshoe pin that he wore +showed that his electorate were not without sporting instincts and +knew a horse from a jackass. + +Most of the time, John Henry Bagshaw had to be at Ottawa (though he +preferred the quiet of his farm and always left it, as he said, with +a sigh). If he was not in Ottawa, he was in Washington, and of course +at any time they might need him in London, so that it was no wonder +that he could only be in Mariposa about two months of the year. + +That is why everybody knew, when Bagshaw got off the afternoon train +one day early in the spring, that there must be something very +important coming and that the rumours about a new election must be +perfectly true. + +Everything that he did showed this. He gave the baggage man +twenty-five cents to take the check off his trunk, the 'bus driver +fifty cents to drive him up to the Main Street, and he went into +Callahan's tobacco store and bought two ten-cent cigars and took them +across the street and gave them to Mallory Tompkins of the +Times-Herald as a present from the Prime Minister. + +All that afternoon, Bagshaw went up and down the Main Street of +Mariposa, and you could see, if you knew the signs of it, that there +was politics in the air. He bought nails and putty and glass in the +hardware store, and harness in the harness shop, and drugs in the +drug store and toys in the toy shop, and all the things like that +that are needed for a big campaign. + +Then when he had done all this he went over with McGinnis the Liberal +organizer and Mallory Tompkins, the Times-Herald man, and Gingham +(the great Independent-Liberal undertaker) to the back parlour in the +Mariposa House. + +You could tell from the way John Henry Bagshaw closed the door before +he sat down that he was in a pretty serious frame of mind. + +"Gentlemen," he said, "the election is a certainty. We're going to +have a big fight on our hands and we've got to get ready for it." + +"Is it going to be on the tariff?" asked Tompkins. + +"Yes, gentlemen, I'm afraid it is. The whole thing is going to turn +on the tariff question. I wish it were otherwise. I think it madness, +but they're bent on it, and we got to fight it on that line. Why they +can't fight it merely on the question of graft," continued the old +war horse, rising from his seat and walking up and down, "Heaven only +knows. I warned them. I appealed to them. I said, fight the thing +on graft and we can win easy. Take this constituency,--why not have +fought the thing out on whether I spent too much money on the town +wharf or the post-office? What better issues could a man want? Let +them claim that I am crooked and let me claim that I'm not. Surely +that was good enough without dragging in the tariff. But now, +gentlemen, tell me about things in the constituency. Is there any +talk yet of who is to run?" + +Mallory Tompkins lighted up the second of his Prime Minister's cigars +and then answered for the group: + +"Everybody says that Edward Drone is going to run." + +"Ah!" said the old war horse, and there was joy upon his face, "is he? +At last! That's good, that's good--now what platform will he run on?" + +"Independent." + +"Excellent," said Mr. Bagshaw. "Independent, that's fine. On a +programme of what?" + +"Just simple honesty and public morality." + +"Come now," said the member, "that's splendid: that will help +enormously. Honesty and public morality! The very thing! If Drone +runs and makes a good showing, we win for a certainty. Tompkins, you +must lose no time over this. Can't you manage to get some articles in +the other papers hinting that at the last election we bribed all the +voters in the county, and that we gave out enough contracts to simply +pervert the whole constituency. Imply that we poured the public money +into this county in bucketsful and that we are bound to do it again. +Let Drone have plenty of material of this sort and he'll draw off +every honest unbiassed vote in the Conservative party. + +"My only fear is," continued the old war horse, losing some of his +animation, "that Drone won't run after all. He's said it so often +before and never has. He hasn't got the money. But we must see to +that. Gingham, you know his brother well; you must work it so that we +pay Drone's deposit and his campaign expenses. But how like Drone it +is to come out at this time!" + +It was indeed very like Edward Drone to attempt so misguided a thing +as to come out an Independent candidate in Missinaba County on a +platform of public honesty. It was just the sort of thing that anyone +in Mariposa would expect from him. + +Edward Drone was the Rural Dean's younger brother,--young Mr. Drone, +they used to call him, years ago, to distinguish him from the rector. +He was a somewhat weaker copy of his elder brother, with a simple, +inefficient face and kind blue eyes. Edward Drone was, and always had +been, a failure. In training he had been, once upon a time, an +engineer and built dams that broke and bridges that fell down and +wharves that floated away in the spring floods. He had been a +manufacturer and failed, had been a contractor and failed, and now +lived a meagre life as a sort of surveyor or land expert on goodness +knows what. + +In his political ideas Edward Drone was and, as everybody in Mariposa +knew, always had been crazy. He used to come up to the autumn +exercises at the high school and make speeches about the ancient +Romans and Titus Manlius and Quintus Curtius at the same time when +John Henry Bagshaw used to make a speech about the Maple Leaf and ask +for an extra half holiday. Drone used to tell the boys about the +lessons to be learned from the lives of the truly great, and Bagshaw +used to talk to them about the lessons learned from the lives of the +extremely rich. Drone used to say that his heart filled whenever he +thought of the splendid patriotism of the ancient Romans, and Bagshaw +said that whenever he looked out over this wide Dominion his heart +overflowed. + +Even the youngest boy in the school could tell that Drone was +foolish. Not even the school teachers would have voted for him. + +"What about the Conservatives?" asked Bagshaw presently; "is there +any talk yet as to who they'll bring out?" Gingham and Mallory +Tompkins looked at one another. They were almost afraid to speak. + +"Hadn't you heard?" said Gingham; "they've got their man already." + +"Who is it?" said Bagshaw quickly. "They're going to put up Josh +Smith." + +"Great Heaven!" said Bagshaw, jumping to his feet; "Smith! the hotel +keeper." + +"Yes, sir," said Mr. Gingham, "that's the man." + +Do you remember, in history, how Napoleon turned pale when he heard +that the Duke of Wellington was to lead the allies in Belgium? Do you +remember how when Themistocles heard that Aristogiton was to lead the +Spartans, he jumped into the sea? Possibly you don't, but it may help +you to form some idea of what John Henry Bagshaw felt when he heard +that the Conservatives had selected Josh Smith, proprietor of Smith's +Hotel. + +You remember Smith. You've seen him there on the steps of his +hotel,--two hundred and eighty pounds in his stockinged feet. You've +seen him selling liquor after hours through sheer public spirit, and +you recall how he saved the lives of hundreds of people on the day +when the steamer sank, and how he saved the town from being destroyed +the night when the Church of England Church burnt down. You know that +hotel of his, too, half way down the street, Smith's Northern Health +Resort, though already they were beginning to call it Smith's British +Arms. + +So you can imagine that Bagshaw came as near to turning pale as a man +in federal politics can. + +"I never knew Smith was a Conservative," he said faintly; "he always +subscribed to our fund." + +"He is now," said Mr. Gingham ominously; "he says the idea of this +reciprocity business cuts him to the heart." + +"The infernal liar!" said Mr. Bagshaw. + +There was silence for a few moments. Then Bagshaw spoke again. + +"Will Smith have anything else in his platform besides the trade +question?" + +"Yes," said Mr. Gingham gloomily, "he will." + +"What is it?" + +"Temperance and total prohibition!" + +John Henry Bagshaw sank back in his chair as if struck with a club. +There let me leave him for a chapter. + + + +ELEVEN + +The Candidacy of Mr. Smith + +"Boys," said Mr. Smith to the two hostlers, stepping out on to the +sidewalk in front of the hotel,--"hoist that there British Jack over +the place and hoist her up good." + +Then he stood and watched the flag fluttering in the wind. + +"Billy," he said to the desk clerk, "get a couple more and put them +up on the roof of the caff behind the hotel. Wire down to the city +and get a quotation on a hundred of them. Take them signs 'American +Drinks' out of the bar. Put up noo ones with 'British Beer at all +Hours'; clear out the rye whiskey and order in Scotch and Irish, and +then go up to the printing office and get me them placards." + +Then another thought struck Mr. Smith. + +"Say, Billy," he said, "wire to the city for fifty pictures of King +George. Get 'em good, and get 'em coloured. It don't matter what they +cost." + +"All right, sir," said Billy. + +"And Billy," called Mr. Smith, as still another thought struck him +(indeed, the moment Mr. Smith went into politics you could see these +thoughts strike him like waves), "get fifty pictures of his father, +old King Albert." + +"All right, sir." + +"And say, I tell you, while you're at it, get some of the old queen, +Victorina, if you can. Get 'em in mourning, with a harp and one of +them lions and a three-pointed prong." + +It was on the morning after the Conservative Convention. Josh Smith +had been chosen the candidate. And now the whole town was covered +with flags and placards and there were bands in the streets every +evening, and noise and music and excitement that went on from morning +till night. + +Election times are exciting enough even in the city. But there the +excitement dies down in business hours. In Mariposa there aren't any +business hours and the excitement goes on _all_ the time. + +Mr. Smith had carried the Convention before him. There had been a +feeble attempt to put up Nivens. But everybody knew that he was a +lawyer and a college man and wouldn't have a chance by a man with a +broader outlook like Josh Smith. + +So the result was that Smith was the candidate and there were +placards out all over the town with SMITH AND BRITISH ALLEGIANCE in +big letters, and people were wearing badges with Mr. Smith's face on +one side and King George's on the other, and the fruit store next to +the hotel had been cleaned out and turned into committee rooms with a +gang of workers smoking cigars in it all day and half the night. + +There were other placards, too, with BAGSHAW AND LIBERTY, BAGSHAW AND +PROSPERITY, VOTE FOR THE OLD MISSINABA STANDARD BEARER, and up town +beside the Mariposa House there were the Bagshaw committee rooms with +a huge white streamer across the street, and with a gang of Bagshaw +workers smoking their heads off. + +But Mr. Smith had an estimate made which showed that nearly two +cigars to one were smoked in his committee rooms as compared with +the Liberals. It was the first time in five elections that the +Conservative had been able to make such a showing as that. + +One might mention, too, that there were Drone placards out,--five or +six of them,--little things about the size of a pocket handkerchief, +with a statement that "Mr. Edward Drone solicits the votes of the +electors of Missinaba County." But you would never notice them. And +when Drone tried to put up a streamer across the Main Street with +DRONE AND HONESTY the wind carried it away into the lake. + +The fight was really between Smith and Bagshaw, and everybody knew it +from the start. + +I wish that I were able to narrate all the phases and the turns of +the great contest from the opening of the campaign till the final +polling day. But it would take volumes. + +First of all, of course, the trade question was hotly discussed in +the two newspapers of Mariposa, and the Newspacket and the +Times-Herald literally bristled with statistics. Then came interviews +with the candidates and the expression of their convictions in regard +to tariff questions. + +"Mr. Smith," said the reporter of the Mariposa Newspacket, "we'd like +to get your views of the effect of the proposed reduction of the +differential duties." + +"By gosh, Pete," said Mr. Smith, "you can search me. Have a cigar." + +"What do you think, Mr. Smith, would be the result of lowering the +_ad valorem_ British preference and admitting American goods at a +reciprocal rate?" + +"It's a corker, ain't it?" answered Mr. Smith. "What'll you take, +lager or domestic?" + +And in that short dialogue Mr. Smith showed that he had +instantaneously grasped the whole method of dealing with the press. +The interview in the paper next day said that Mr. Smith, while +unwilling to state positively that the principle of tariff +discrimination was at variance with sound fiscal science, was firmly +of opinion that any reciprocal interchange of tariff preferences with +the United States must inevitably lead to a serious per capita +reduction of the national industry. + + +"Mr. Smith," said the chairman of a delegation of the manufacturers +of Mariposa, "what do you propose to do in regard to the tariff if +you're elected?" + +"Boys," answered Mr. Smith, "I'll put her up so darned high they +won't never get her down again." + + +"Mr. Smith," said the chairman of another delegation, "I'm an old +free trader--" + +"Put it there," said Mr. Smith, "so'm I. There ain't nothing like +it." + + +"What do you think about imperial defence?" asked another questioner. + +"Which?" said Mr. Smith. + +"Imperial defence." + +"Of what?" + +"Of everything." + +"Who says it?" said Mr. Smith. + +"Everybody is talking of it." + +"What do the Conservative boys at Ottaway think about it?" answered +Mr. Smith. + +"They're all for it." + +"Well, I'm fer it too," said Mr. Smith. + + +These little conversations represented only the first stage, the +argumentative stage of the great contest. It was during this period, +for example, that the Mariposa Newspacket absolutely proved that the +price of hogs in Mariposa was decimal six higher than the price of +oranges in Southern California and that the average decennial import +of eggs into Missinaba County had increased four decimal six eight +two in the last fifteen years more than the import of lemons in New +Orleans. + +Figures of this kind made the people think. Most certainly. + +After all this came the organizing stage and after that the big +public meetings and the rallies. Perhaps you have never seen a county +being "organized." It is a wonderful sight. + +First of all the Bagshaw men drove through crosswise in top buggies +and then drove through it again lengthwise. Whenever they met a +farmer they went in and ate a meal with him, and after the meal they +took him out to the buggy and gave him a drink. After that the man's +vote was absolutely solid until it was tampered with by feeding a +Conservative. + +In fact, the only way to show a farmer that you are in earnest is to +go in and eat a meal with him. If you won't eat it, he won't vote for +you. That is the recognized political test. + +But, of course, just as soon as the Bagshaw men had begun to get the +farming vote solidified, the Smith buggies came driving through in +the other direction, eating meals and distributing cigars and turning +all the farmers back into Conservatives. + +Here and there you might see Edward Drone, the Independent candidate, +wandering round from farm to farm in the dust of the political +buggies. To each of the farmers he explained that he pledged himself +to give no bribes, to spend no money and to offer no jobs, and each +one of them gripped him warmly by the hand and showed him the way to +the next farm. + +After the organization of the county there came the period of the +public meetings and the rallies and the joint debates between the +candidates and their supporters. + +I suppose there was no place in the whole Dominion where the trade +question--the Reciprocity question--was threshed out quite so +thoroughly and in quite such a national patriotic spirit as in +Mariposa. For a month, at least, people talked of nothing else. A man +would stop another in the street and tell him that he had read last +night that the average price of an egg in New York was decimal ought +one more than the price of an egg in Mariposa, and the other man +would stop the first one later in the day and tell him that the +average price of a hog in Idaho was point six of a cent per pound +less (or more,--he couldn't remember which for the moment) than the +average price of beef in Mariposa. + +People lived on figures of this sort, and the man who could +remember most of them stood out as a born leader. + +But of course it was at the public meetings that these things were +most fully discussed. It would take volumes to do full justice to all +the meetings that they held in Missinaba County. But here and there +single speeches stood out as masterpieces of convincing oratory. +Take, for example, the speech of John Henry Bagshaw at the Tecumseh +Corners School House. The Mariposa Times-Herald said next day that +that speech would go down in history, and so it will,--ever so far +down. + +Anyone who has heard Bagshaw knows what an impressive speaker he is, +and on this night when he spoke with the quiet dignity of a man old +in years and anxious only to serve his country, he almost surpassed +himself. Near the end of his speech somebody dropped a pin, and the +noise it made in falling fairly rattled the windows. + +"I am an old man now, gentlemen," Bagshaw said, "and the time must +soon come when I must not only leave politics, but must take my way +towards that goal from which no traveller returns." + +There was a deep hush when Bagshaw said this. It was understood to +imply that he thought of going to the United States. + +"Yes, gentlemen, I am an old man, and I wish, when my time comes to +go, to depart leaving as little animosity behind me as possible. But +before I _do_ go, I want it pretty clearly understood that there are +more darn scoundrels in the Conservative party than ought to be +tolerated in any decent community. I bear," he continued, "malice +towards none and I wish to speak with gentleness to all, but what I +will say is that how any set of rational responsible men could +nominate such a skunk as the Conservative candidate passes the bounds +of my comprehension. Gentlemen, in the present campaign there is no +room for vindictive abuse. Let us rise to a higher level than that. +They tell me that my opponent, Smith, is a common saloon keeper. +Let it pass. They tell me that he has stood convicted of horse +stealing, that he is a notable perjurer, that he is known as the +blackest-hearted liar in Missinaba County. Let us not speak of it. +Let no whisper of it pass our lips. + +"No, gentlemen," continued Bagshaw, pausing to take a drink of water, +"let us rather consider this question on the high plane of national +welfare. Let us not think of our own particular interests but let us +consider the good of the country at large. And to do this, let me +present to you some facts in regard to the price of barley in +Tecumseh Township." + +Then, amid a deep stillness, Bagshaw read off the list of prices of +sixteen kinds of grain in sixteen different places during sixteen +years. + +"But let me turn," Bagshaw went on to another phase of the national +subject, "and view for a moment the price of marsh hay in Missinaba +County--" + +When Bagshaw sat down that night it was felt that a Liberal vote in +Tecumseh Township was a foregone conclusion. + +But here they hadn't reckoned on the political genius of Mr. Smith. +When he heard next day of the meeting, he summoned some of his +leading speakers to him and he said: + +"Boys, they're beating us on them statissicks. Ourn ain't good +enough." + +Then he turned to Nivens and he said: + +"What was them figures you had here the other night?" + +Nivens took out a paper and began reading. + +"Stop," said Mr. Smith, "what was that figure for bacon?" + +"Fourteen million dollars," said Nivens. + +"Not enough," said Mr. Smith, "make it twenty. They'll stand for it, +them farmers." + +Nivens changed it. + +"And what was that for hay?" + +"Two dollars a ton." + +"Shove it up to four," said Mr. Smith: "And I tell you," he added, +"if any of them farmers says the figures ain't correct, tell them to +go to Washington and see for themselves; say that if any man wants +the proof of your figures let him go over to England and ask,--tell +him to go straight to London and see it all for himself in the +books." + + +After this, there was no more trouble over statistics. I must say +though that it is a wonderfully convincing thing to hear trade +figures of this kind properly handled. Perhaps the best man on this +sort of thing in the campaign was Mullins, the banker. A man of his +profession simply has to have figures of trade and population and +money at his fingers' ends and the effect of it in public speaking is +wonderful. + +No doubt you have listened to speakers of this kind, but I question +whether you have ever heard anything more typical of the sort of +effect that I allude to than Mullins's speech at the big rally at the +Fourth Concession. + +Mullins himself, of course, knows the figures so well that he never +bothers to write them into notes and the effect is very striking. + +"Now, gentlemen," he said very earnestly, "how many of you know just +to what extent the exports of this country have increased in the last +ten years? How many could tell what per cent. of increase there has +been in one decade of our national importation?"--then Mullins paused +and looked round. Not a man knew it. + +"I don't recall," he said, "exactly the precise amount myself,--not +at this moment,--but it must be simply tremendous. Or take the +question of population," Mullins went on, warming up again as a born +statistician always does at the proximity of figures, "how many of +you know, how many of you can state, what has been the decennial +percentage increase in our leading cities--?" + +There he paused, and would you believe it, not a man could state it. + +"I don't recall the exact figures," said Mullins, "but I have them at +home and they are positively colossal." + +But just in one phase of the public speaking, the candidacy of Mr. +Smith received a serious set-back. + +It had been arranged that Mr. Smith should run on a platform of +total prohibition. But they soon found that it was a mistake. They +had imported a special speaker from the city, a grave man with a +white tie, who put his whole heart into the work and would take +nothing for it except his expenses and a sum of money for each +speech. But beyond the money, I say, he would take nothing. + +He spoke one night at the Tecumseh Corners social hall at the same +time when the Liberal meeting was going on at the Tecumseh Corners +school house. + +"Gentlemen," he said, as he paused half way in his speech,--"while +we are gathered here in earnest discussion, do you know what is +happening over at the meeting place of our opponents? Do you know +that seventeen bottles of rye whiskey were sent out from the town +this afternoon to that innocent and unsuspecting school house? +Seventeen bottles of whiskey hidden in between the blackboard and the +wall, and every single man that attends that meeting,--mark my +words, every single man,--will drink his fill of the abominable stuff +at the expense of the Liberal candidate!" + +Just as soon as the speaker said this, you could see the Smith men at +the meeting look at one another in injured surprise, and before the +speech was half over the hall was practically emptied. + +After that the total prohibition plank was changed and the committee +substituted a declaration in favour of such a form of restrictive +license as should promote temperance while encouraging the +manufacture of spirituous liquors, and by a severe regulation of the +liquor traffic should place intoxicants only in the hands of those +fitted to use them. + + +Finally there came the great day itself, the Election Day that +brought, as everybody knows, the crowning triumph of Mr. Smith's +career. There is no need to speak of it at any length, because it has +become a matter of history. + +In any case, everybody who has ever seen Mariposa knows just what +election day is like. The shops, of course, are, as a matter of +custom, all closed, and the bar rooms are all closed by law so that +you have to go in by the back way. All the people are in their best +clothes and at first they walk up and down the street in a solemn +way just as they do on the twelfth of July and on St. Patrick's Day, +before the fun begins. Everybody keeps looking in at the different +polling places to see if anybody else has voted yet, because, of +course, nobody cares to vote first for fear of being fooled after all +and voting on the wrong side. + +Most of all did the supporters of Mr. Smith, acting under his +instructions, hang back from the poll in the early hours. To Mr. +Smith's mind, voting was to be conducted on the same plan as +bear-shooting. + +"Hold back your votes, boys," he said, "and don't be too eager. Wait +till she begins to warm up and then let 'em have it good and hard." + +In each of the polling places in Mariposa there is a returning +officer and with him are two scrutineers, and the electors, I say, +peep in and out like mice looking into a trap. But if once the +scrutineers get a man well into the polling booth, they push him in +behind a little curtain and make him vote. The voting, of course, is +by secret ballot, so that no one except the scrutineers and the +returning officer and the two or three people who may be round the +poll can possibly tell how a man has voted. + +That's how it comes about that the first results are often so +contradictory and conflicting. Sometimes the poll is badly arranged +and the scrutineers are unable to see properly just how the ballots +are being marked and they count up the Liberals and Conservatives in +different ways. Often, too, a voter makes his mark so hurriedly and +carelessly that they have to pick it out of the ballot box and look +at it to see what it is. + +I suppose that may have been why it was that in Mariposa the results +came out at first in such a conflicting way. Perhaps that was how it +was that the first reports showed that Edward Drone the Independent +candidate was certain to win. You should have seen how the excitement +grew upon the streets when the news was circulated. In the big +rallies and meetings of the Liberals and Conservatives, everybody had +pretty well forgotten all about Drone, and when the news got round +at about four o'clock that the Drone vote was carrying the poll, the +people were simply astounded. Not that they were not pleased. On +the contrary. They were delighted. Everybody came up to Drone and +shook hands and congratulated him and told him that they had known +all along that what the country wanted was a straight, honest, +non-partisan representation. The Conservatives said openly that they +were sick of party, utterly done with it, and the Liberals said that +they hated it. Already three or four of them had taken Drone aside +and explained that what was needed in the town was a straight, clean, +non-partisan post-office, built on a piece of ground of a strictly +non-partisan character, and constructed under contracts that were +not tainted and smirched with party affiliation. Two or three men +were willing to show to Drone just where a piece of ground of this +character could be bought. They told him too that in the matter of +the postmastership itself they had nothing against Trelawney, the +present postmaster, in any personal sense, and would say nothing +against him except merely that he was utterly and hopelessly unfit +for his job and that if Drone believed, as he had said he did, in a +purified civil service, he ought to begin by purifying Trelawney. + +Already Edward Drone was beginning to feel something of what it meant +to hold office and there was creeping into his manner the quiet +self-importance which is the first sign of conscious power. + +In fact, in that brief half-hour of office, Drone had a chance to see +something of what it meant. Henry McGinnis came to him and asked +straight out for a job as federal census-taker on the ground that he +was hard up and had been crippled with rheumatism all winter. Nelson +Williamson asked for the post of wharf master on the plea that he had +been laid up with sciatica all winter and was absolutely fit for +nothing. Erasmus Archer asked him if he could get his boy Pete into +one of the departments at Ottawa, and made a strong case of it by +explaining that he had tried his cussedest to get Pete a job anywhere +else and it was simply impossible. Not that Pete wasn't a willing +boy, but he was slow,--even his father admitted it,--slow as the +devil, blast him, and with no head for figures and unfortunately he'd +never had the schooling to bring him on. But if Drone could get him +in at Ottawa, his father truly believed it would be the very place +for him. Surely in the Indian Department or in the Astronomical +Branch or in the New Canadian Navy there must be any amount of +opening for a boy like this? And to all of these requests Drone found +himself explaining that he would take the matter under his very +earnest consideration and that they must remember that he had to +consult his colleagues and not merely follow the dictates of his own +wishes. In fact, if he had ever in his life had any envy of Cabinet +Ministers, he lost it in this hour. + +But Drone's hour was short. Even before the poll had closed in +Mariposa, the news came sweeping in, true or false, that Bagshaw was +carrying the county. The second concession had gone for Bagshaw in a +regular landslide, six votes to only two for Smith,--and all down the +township line road (where the hay farms are) Bagshaw was said to be +carrying all before him. + +Just as soon as that news went round the town, they launched the +Mariposa band of the Knights of Pythias (every man in it is a +Liberal) down the Main Street with big red banners in front of it +with the motto BAGSHAW FOREVER in letters a foot high. Such rejoicing +and enthusiasm began to set in as you never saw. Everybody crowded +round Bagshaw on the steps of the Mariposa House and shook his +hand and said they were proud to see the day and that the Liberal +party was the glory of the Dominion and that as for this idea of +non-partisan politics the very thought of it made them sick. Right +away in the committee rooms they began to organize the demonstration +for the evening with lantern slides and speeches and they arranged +for a huge bouquet to be presented to Bagshaw on the platform by four +little girls (all Liberals) all dressed in white. + +And it was just at this juncture, with one hour of voting left, that +Mr. Smith emerged from his committee rooms and turned his voters on +the town, much as the Duke of Wellington sent the whole line to the +charge at Waterloo. From every committee room and sub-committee room +they poured out in flocks with blue badges fluttering on their coats. + +"Get at it, boys," said Mr. Smith, "vote and keep on voting till they +make you quit." + +Then he turned to his campaign assistant. "Billy," he said, "wire +down to the city that I'm elected by an overwhelming majority and +tell them to wire it right back. Send word by telephone to all the +polling places in the county that the hull town has gone solid +Conservative and tell them to send the same news back here. Get +carpenters and tell them to run up a platform in front of the hotel; +tell them to take the bar door clean off its hinges and be all ready +the minute the poll quits." + +It was that last hour that did it. Just as soon as the big posters +went up in the windows of the Mariposa Newspacket with the +telegraphic despatch that Josh Smith was reported in the city to be +elected, and was followed by the messages from all over the county, +the voters hesitated no longer. They had waited, most of them, all +through the day, not wanting to make any error in their vote, but +when they saw the Smith men crowding into the polls and heard the +news from the outside, they went solid in one great stampede, and by +the time the poll was declared closed at five o'clock there was no +shadow of doubt that the county was saved and that Josh Smith was +elected for Missinaba. + + +I wish you could have witnessed the scene in Mariposa that evening. +It would have done your heart good,--such joy, such public rejoicing +as you never saw. It turned out that there wasn't really a Liberal in +the whole town and that there never had been. They were all +Conservatives and had been for years and years. Men who had voted, +with pain and sorrow in their hearts, for the Liberal party for +twenty years, came out that evening and owned up straight that they +were Conservatives. They said they could stand the strain no longer +and simply had to confess. Whatever the sacrifice might mean, they +were prepared to make it. + +Even Mr. Golgotha Gingham, the undertaker, came out and admitted that +in working for John Henry Bagshaw he'd been going straight against +his conscience. He said that right from the first he had had his +misgivings. He said it had haunted him. Often at night when he would +be working away quietly, one of these sudden misgivings would +overcome him so that he could hardly go on with his embalming. Why, +it appeared that on the very first day when reciprocity was proposed, +he had come home and said to Mrs. Gingham that he thought it simply +meant selling out the country. And the strange thing was that ever +so many others had just the same misgivings. Trelawney admitted that +he had said to Mrs. Trelawney that it was madness, and Jeff Thorpe, +the barber, had, he admitted, gone home to his dinner, the first day +reciprocity was talked of, and said to Mrs. Thorpe that it would +simply kill business in the country and introduce a cheap, shoddy, +American form of haircut that would render true loyalty impossible. +To think that Mrs. Gingham and Mrs. Trelawney and Mrs. Thorpe had +known all this for six months and kept quiet about it! Yet I think +there were a good many Mrs. Ginghams in the country. It is merely +another proof that no woman is fit for politics. + + +The demonstration that night in Mariposa will never be forgotten. The +excitement in the streets, the torchlights, the music of the band of +the Knights of Pythias (an organization which is conservative in all +but name), and above all the speeches and the patriotism. + +They had put up a big platform in front of the hotel, and on it were +Mr. Smith and his chief workers, and behind them was a perfect forest +of flags. They presented a huge bouquet of flowers to Mr. Smith, +handed to him by four little girls in white,--the same four that I +spoke of above, for it turned out that they were all Conservatives. + +Then there were the speeches. Judge Pepperleigh spoke and said that +there was no need to dwell on the victory that they had achieved, +because it was history; there was no occasion to speak of what part +he himself had played, within the limits of his official position, +because what he had done was henceforth a matter of history; and +Nivens, the lawyer, said that he would only say just a few words, +because anything that he might have done was now history; later +generations, he said, might read it but it was not for him to speak +of it, because it belonged now to the history of the country. And, +after them, others spoke in the same strain and all refused +absolutely to dwell on the subject (for more than half an hour) on +the ground that anything that they might have done was better left +for future generations to investigate. And no doubt this was very +true, as to some things, anyway. + +Mr. Smith, of course, said nothing. He didn't have to,--not for four +years,--and he knew it. + + + +TWELVE + +L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa + +It leaves the city every day about five o'clock in the evening, the +train for Mariposa. + +Strange that you did not know of it, though you come from the little +town--or did, long years ago. + +Odd that you never knew, in all these years, that the train was there +every afternoon, puffing up steam in the city station, and that you +might have boarded it any day and gone home. No, not "home,"--of +course you couldn't call it "home" now; "home" means that big red +sandstone house of yours in the costlier part of the city. "Home" +means, in a way, this Mausoleum Club where you sometimes talk with me +of the times that you had as a boy in Mariposa. + +But of course "home" would hardly be the word you would apply to the +little town, unless perhaps, late at night, when you'd been sitting +reading in a quiet corner somewhere such a book as the present one. + +Naturally you don't know of the Mariposa train now. Years ago, when +you first came to the city as a boy with your way to make, you knew +of it well enough, only too well. The price of a ticket counted in +those days, and though you knew of the train you couldn't take it, +but sometimes from sheer homesickness you used to wander down to the +station on a Friday afternoon after your work, and watch the Mariposa +people getting on the train and wish that you could go. + +Why, you knew that train at one time better, I suppose, than any +other single thing in the city, and loved it too for the little town +in the sunshine that it ran to. + +Do you remember how when you first began to make money you used to +plan that just as soon as you were rich, really rich, you'd go back +home again to the little town and build a great big house with a fine +verandah,--no stint about it, the best that money could buy, planed +lumber, every square foot of it, and a fine picket fence in front of +it. + +It was to be one of the grandest and finest houses that thought could +conceive; much finer, in true reality, than that vast palace of +sandstone with the porte cochere and the sweeping conservatories that +you afterwards built in the costlier part of the city. + +But if you have half forgotten Mariposa, and long since lost the way +to it, you are only like the greater part of the men here in this +Mausoleum Club in the city. Would you believe it that practically +every one of them came from Mariposa once upon a time, and that there +isn't one of them that doesn't sometimes dream in the dull quiet of +the long evening here in the club, that some day he will go back and +see the place. + +They all do. Only they're half ashamed to own it. + +Ask your neighbour there at the next table whether the partridge that +they sometimes serve to you here can be compared for a moment to the +birds that he and you, or he and some one else, used to shoot as boys +in the spruce thickets along the lake. Ask him if he ever tasted duck +that could for a moment be compared to the black ducks in the rice +marsh along the Ossawippi. And as for fish, and fishing,--no, don't +ask him about that, for if he ever starts telling you of the chub +they used to catch below the mill dam and the green bass that used to +lie in the water-shadow of the rocks beside the Indian's Island, not +even the long dull evening in this club would be long enough for the +telling of it. + +But no wonder they don't know about the five o'clock train for +Mariposa. Very few people know about it. Hundreds of them know that +there is a train that goes out at five o'clock, but they mistake it. +Ever so many of them think it's just a suburban train. Lots of people +that take it every day think it's only the train to the golf grounds, +but the joke is that after it passes out of the city and the suburbs +and the golf grounds, it turns itself little by little into the +Mariposa train, thundering and pounding towards the north with +hemlock sparks pouring out into the darkness from the funnel of it. + +Of course you can't tell it just at first. All those people that are +crowding into it with golf clubs, and wearing knickerbockers and flat +caps, would deceive anybody. That crowd of suburban people going home +on commutation tickets and sometimes standing thick in the aisles, +those are, of course, not Mariposa people. But look round a little +bit and you'll find them easily enough. Here and there in the crowd +those people with the clothes that are perfectly all right and yet +look odd in some way, the women with the peculiar hats and the--what +do you say?--last year's fashions? Ah yes, of course, that must be +it. + +Anyway, those are the Mariposa people all right enough. That man +with the two-dollar panama and the glaring spectacles is one of the +greatest judges that ever adorned the bench of Missinaba County. That +clerical gentleman with the wide black hat, who is explaining to the +man with him the marvellous mechanism of the new air brake (one of +the most conspicuous illustrations of the divine structure of the +physical universe), surely you have seen him before. Mariposa people! +Oh yes, there are any number of them on the train every day. + +But of course you hardly recognize them while the train is still +passing through the suburbs and the golf district and the outlying +parts of the city area. But wait a little, and you will see that when +the city is well behind you, bit by bit the train changes its +character. The electric locomotive that took you through the city +tunnels is off now and the old wood engine is hitched on in its +place. I suppose, very probably, you haven't seen one of these wood +engines since you were a boy forty years ago,--the old engine with a +wide top like a hat on its funnel, and with sparks enough to light up +a suit for damages once in every mile. + +Do you see, too, that the trim little cars that came out of the city +on the electric suburban express are being discarded now at the way +stations, one by one, and in their place is the old familiar car with +the stuff cushions in red plush (how gorgeous it once seemed!) and +with a box stove set up in one end of it? The stove is burning +furiously at its sticks this autumn evening, for the air sets in +chill as you get clear away from the city and are rising up to the +higher ground of the country of the pines and the lakes. + +Look from the window as you go. The city is far behind now and right +and left of you there are trim farms with elms and maples near them +and with tall windmills beside the barns that you can still see in +the gathering dusk. There is a dull red light from the windows of +the farmstead. It must be comfortable there after the roar and +clatter of the city, and only think of the still quiet of it. + +As you sit back half dreaming in the car, you keep wondering why it +is that you never came up before in all these years. Ever so many +times you planned that just as soon as the rush and strain of +business eased up a little, you would take the train and go back to +the little town to see what it was like now, and if things had +changed much since your day. But each time when your holidays came, +somehow you changed your mind and went down to Naragansett or +Nagahuckett or Nagasomething, and left over the visit to Mariposa for +another time. + +It is almost night now. You can still see the trees and the fences +and the farmsteads, but they are fading fast in the twilight. They +have lengthened out the train by this time with a string of flat cars +and freight cars between where we are sitting and the engine. But at +every crossway we can hear the long muffled roar of the whistle, +dying to a melancholy wail that echoes into the woods; the woods, I +say, for the farms are thinning out and the track plunges here and +there into great stretches of bush,--tall tamerack and red scrub +willow and with a tangled undergrowth of bush that has defied for two +generations all attempts to clear it into the form of fields. + +Why, look, that great space that seems to open out in the half-dark +of the falling evening,--why, surely yes,--Lake Ossawippi, the big +lake, as they used to call it, from which the river runs down to the +smaller lake,--Lake Wissanotti,--where the town of Mariposa has lain +waiting for you there for thirty years. + +This is Lake Ossawippi surely enough. You would know it anywhere by +the broad, still, black water with hardly a ripple, and with the grip +of the coming frost already on it. Such a great sheet of blackness it +looks as the train thunders along the side, swinging the curve of the +embankment at a breakneck speed as it rounds the corner of the lake. + +How fast the train goes this autumn night! You have travelled, I know +you have; in the Empire State Express, and the New Limited and the +Maritime Express that holds the record of six hundred whirling miles +from Paris to Marseilles. But what are they to this, this mad career, +this breakneck speed, this thundering roar of the Mariposa local +driving hard to its home! Don't tell me that the speed is only +twenty-five miles an hour. I don't care what it is. I tell you, and +you can prove it for yourself if you will, that that train of mingled +flat cars and coaches that goes tearing into the night, its engine +whistle shrieking out its warning into the silent woods and echoing +over the dull still lake, is the fastest train in the whole world. + +Yes, and the best too,--the most comfortable, the most reliable, the +most luxurious and the speediest train that ever turned a wheel. + +And the most genial, the most sociable too. See how the passengers +all turn and talk to one another now as they get nearer and nearer to +the little town. That dull reserve that seemed to hold the passengers +in the electric suburban has clean vanished and gone. They are +talking,--listen,--of the harvest, and the late election, and of how +the local member is mentioned for the cabinet and all the old +familiar topics of the sort. Already the conductor has changed his +glazed hat for an ordinary round Christie and you can hear the +passengers calling him and the brakesman "Bill" and "Sam" as if they +were all one family. + +What is it now--nine thirty? Ah, then we must be nearing the +town,--this big bush that we are passing through, you remember it +surely as the great swamp just this side of the bridge over the +Ossawippi? There is the bridge itself, and the long roar of the train +as it rushes sounding over the trestle work that rises above the +marsh. Hear the clatter as we pass the semaphores and switch lights! +We must be close in now! + +What? it feels nervous and strange to be coming here again after all +these years? It must indeed. No, don't bother to look at the +reflection of your face in the window-pane shadowed by the night +outside. Nobody could tell you now after all these years. Your face +has changed in these long years of money-getting in the city. Perhaps +if you had come back now and again, just at odd times, it wouldn't +have been so. + +There,--you hear it?--the long whistle of the locomotive, one, two, +three! You feel the sharp slackening of the train as it swings round +the curve of the last embankment that brings it to the Mariposa +station. See, too, as we round the curve, the row of the flashing +lights, the bright windows of the depot. + +How vivid and plain it all is. Just as it used to be thirty years +ago. There is the string of the hotel 'buses, drawn up all ready for +the train, and as the train rounds in and stops hissing and panting +at the platform, you can hear above all other sounds the cry of the +brakesmen and the porters: + +"MARIPOSA! MARIPOSA!" + + +And as we listen, the cry grows fainter and fainter in our ears and +we are sitting here again in the leather chairs of the Mausoleum +Club, talking of the little Town in the Sunshine that once we knew. + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town, by Stephen Leacock |