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.