ngler,--you know the place. The lunch was
divided up into tables, with a captain for each table to see about
things to drink, and of course all the tables were in competition with
one another. In fact the competition was the very life of the whole
thing.

It's just wonderful how these things run when they're organized. Take
the first luncheon, for example. There they all were, every man in his
place, every captain at his post at the top of the table. It was hard,
perhaps, for some of them to get there. They had very likely to be in
their stores and banks and offices till the last minute and then make a
dash for it. It was the cleanest piece of team work you ever saw.

You have noticed already, I am sure, that a good many of the captains
and committee men didn't belong to the Church of England Church. Glover,
for instance, was a Presbyterian, till they ran the picket fence of
the manse two feet on to his property, and after that he became a
free-thinker. But in Mariposa, as I have said, everybody likes to be in
everything and naturally a Whirlwind Campaign was a novelty. Anyway it
would have been a poor business to keep a man out of the lunches merely
on account of his religion. I trust that the day for that kind of
religious bigotry is past.

Of course the excitement was when Henry Mullins at the head of the table
began reading out the telegrams and letters and messages. First of all
there was a telegram of good wishes from the Anglican Lord Bishop of
the Diocese to Henry Mullins and calling him Dear Brother in Grace the
Mariposa telegraph office is a little unreliable and it read: "Dear
Brother in grease," but that was good enough. The Bishop said that his
most earnest wishes were with them.

Then Mullins read a letter from the Mayor of Mariposa Pete Glover was
mayor that year--stating that his keenest desires were with them: and
then one from the Carriage Company saying that its heartiest good will
was all theirs; and then one from the Meat Works saying that its nearest
thoughts were next to them. Then he read one from himself, as head of
the Exchange Bank, you understand, informing him that he had heard
of his project and assuring him of his liveliest interest in what he
proposed.

At each of these telegrams and messages there was round after round of
applause, so that you could hardly hear yourself speak or give an order.
But that was nothing to when Mullins got up again, and beat on the
table for silence and