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