ind and makes
the Mona Lisa seem an open book and the ordinary human countenance as
superficial as a puddle in the sunlight. After you have had a drink
in Mr. Smith's bar, and he has called you by your Christian name, you
realize that you are dealing with one of the greatest minds in the hotel
business.

Take, for instance, the big sign that sticks out into the street above
Mr. Smith's head as he stands. What is on it? "JOS. SMITH, PROP."
Nothing more, and yet the thing was a flash of genius. Other men who had
had the hotel before Mr. Smith had called it by such feeble names as
the Royal Hotel and the Queen's and the Alexandria. Every one of them
failed. When Mr. Smith took over the hotel he simply put up the sign
with "JOS. SMITH, PROP.," and then stood underneath in the sunshine as
a living proof that a man who weighs nearly three hundred pounds is the
natural king of the hotel business.

But on this particular afternoon, in spite of the sunshine and deep
peace, there was something as near to profound concern and anxiety as
the features of Mr. Smith were ever known to express.

The moment was indeed an anxious one. Mr. Smith was awaiting a telegram
from his legal adviser who had that day journeyed to the county town
to represent the proprietor's interest before the assembled License
Commissioners. If you know anything of the hotel business at all,
you will understand that as beside the decisions of the License
Commissioners of Missinaba County, the opinions of the Lords of the
Privy Council are mere trifles.

The matter in question was very grave. The Mariposa Court had just
fined Mr. Smith for the second time for selling liquors after hours. The
Commissioners, therefore, were entitled to cancel the license.

Mr. Smith knew his fault and acknowledged it. He had broken the law. How
he had come to do so, it passed his imagination to recall. Crime always
seems impossible in retrospect. By what sheer madness of the moment
could he have shut up the bar on the night in question, and shut Judge
Pepperleigh, the district judge in Missinaba County, outside of it? The
more so inasmuch as the closing up of the bar under the rigid license
law of the province was a matter that the proprietor never trusted to
any hands but his own. Punctually every night at 11 o'clock Mr. Smith
strolled from the desk of the "rotunda" to the door of the bar. If it
seemed properly full of people and all was bright and cheerful, then
he closed i