ifty cents to
get covered with cinders, and there were still others who hadn't paid
fifty cents to get shaken to death with the propeller.

Still, it was all right presently. The people seemed to get sorted out
into the places on the boat where they belonged. The women, the older
ones, all gravitated into the cabin on the lower deck and by getting
round the table with needlework, and with all the windows shut, they
soon had it, as they said themselves, just like being at home.

All the young boys and the toughs and the men in the band got down on
the lower deck forward, where the boat was dirtiest and where the anchor
was and the coils of rope.

And upstairs on the after deck there were Lilian Drone and Miss Lawson,
the high school teacher, with a book of German poetry,--Gothey I think
it was,--and the bank teller and the younger men.

In the centre, standing beside the rail, were Dean Drone and Dr.
Gallagher, looking through binocular glasses at the shore.

Up in front on the little deck forward of the pilot house was a group
of the older men, Mullins and Duff and Mr. Smith in a deck chair, and
beside him Mr. Golgotha Gingham, the undertaker of Mariposa, on a stool.
It was part of Mr. Gingham's principles to take in an outing of this
sort, a business matter, more or less,--for you never know what may
happen at these water parties. At any rate, he was there in a neat suit
of black, not, of course, his heavier or professional suit, but a soft
clinging effect as of burnt paper that combined gaiety and decorum to a
nicety.

"Yes," said Mr. Gingham, waving his black glove in a general way towards
the shore, "I know the lake well, very well. I've been pretty much all
over it in my time."

"Canoeing?" asked somebody.

"No," said Mr. Gingham, "not in a canoe." There seemed a peculiar and
quiet meaning in his tone.

"Sailing, I suppose," said somebody else.

"No," said Mr. Gingham. "I don't understand it."

"I never knowed that you went on to the water at all, Gol," said Mr.
Smith, breaking in.

"Ah, not now," explained Mr. Gingham; "it was years ago, the first
summer I came to Mariposa. I was on the water practically all day.
Nothing like it to give a man an appetite and keep him in shape."

"Was you camping?" asked Mr. Smith.

"We camped at night," assented the undertaker, "but we put in
practically the whole day on the water. You see we were after a party
that had come up here from the city on his vacatio