evised since his
father's time. Hence there was nothing for it but to sling him into a
bank; "sling him" was, I think, the expression. So his father decided
that if Pupkin was to be slung, he should be slung good and far--clean
into Canada (you know the way they use that word in the Maritime
Provinces). And to sling Pupkin he called in the services of an old
friend, a man after his own heart, just as violent as himself, who used
to be at the law school in the city with Pupkin senior thirty years ago.
So this friend, who happened to live in Mariposa, and who was a violent
man, said at once: "Edward, by Jehoshaphat! send the boy up here."

So that is how Pupkin came to Mariposa. And if, when he got there, his
father's friend gave no sign, and treated the boy with roughness and
incivility, that may have been, for all I know, a continuation of the
"tanning" process of the Maritime people.

Did I mention that the Pepperleigh family, generations ago, had taken up
land near the Aroostook, and that it was from there the judge's father
came to Tecumseh township? Perhaps not, but it doesn't matter.

But surely after such reminiscences as these the awful things that are
impending over Mr. Pupkin must be kept for another chapter.

NINE. The Mariposa Bank Mystery

Suicide is a thing that ought not to be committed without very careful
thought. It often involves serious consequences, and in some cases
brings pain to others than oneself.

I don't say that there is no justification for it. There often is.
Anybody who has listened to certain kinds of music, or read certain
kinds of poetry, or heard certain kinds of performances upon the
concertina, will admit that there are some lives which ought not to be
continued, and that even suicide has its brighter aspects.

But to commit suicide on grounds of love is at the best a very dubious
experiment. I know that in this I am expressing an opinion contrary
to that of most true lovers who embrace suicide on the slightest
provocation as the only honourable termination of an existence that
never ought to have begun.

I quite admit that there is a glamour and a sensation about the thing
which has its charm, and that there is nothing like it for causing a
girl to realize the value of the heart that she has broken and which
breathed forgiveness upon her at the very moment when it held in its
hand the half-pint of prussic acid that was to terminate its beating for
ever.

But apart f