ery little of it was expressed, for the reason, common
to the greater proportion of humanity: the victims in proclaiming
their distrust would have proclaimed at the same time their
victimization. It was quite safe to assume that the open detractors
of Carroll had not been duped by him; it was also quite safe to
assume that many of those who either remained silent or declared
their belief in him had suffered more or less. The latter were those
who made it possible for the Carrolls to remain in Banbridge at all.
There were many who had a lingering hope of securing something in the
end, who did not wish Carroll to depart, and who were even uneasy at
his absence, although the fact of his family remaining and of the
wedding preparations for his daughter going on seemed sufficient to
allay suspicions. It is generally true that partisanship, even of the
few, counts for more than disparagement of the many, with all
right-intentioned people who have a reasonable amount of love for
their fellow-men. Somehow partisanship, up to a certain limit, beyond
which the partisan appears a fool to all who listen to him, seems to
give credit to the believer in it. At all events, while the number of
Arthur Carroll's detractors was greatly in advance of his adherents,
the moral atmosphere of Banbridge, while lowering, was still very far
from cyclonic for him. He got little credit, yet still friendly,
admiring, and even obsequious recognition.

The invitations to his daughter's wedding had been eagerly accepted.
The speculations as to whether the bills would be paid or not added
to the interest. In those days the florist and the dressmaker were
quite local celebrities. They looked anxious, yet rather pleasantly
self-conscious. The dressmaker bragged by day and lay awake by night.
Every time the florist felt uneasy, he slipped across to the nearest
saloon and got a drink of beer. After that, when asked if he did not
feel afraid he would lose money through the Carroll wedding, he said
something about the general esteem in which people should be held who
patronized local industries, in his thick German-English, grinned,
and shambled back, his fat hips shaking like a woman's, to his
hot-houses, and pottered around his geraniums and decorative palms.

On the Sunday morning before the wedding there were an unusual number
of men in the barber-shop--old Eastman, Frank's father, who generally
shaved himself, besides Amidon, Drake, the postmaster, Tappa