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.