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