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