we
are gathered here in earnest discussion, do you know what is happening
over at the meeting place of our opponents? Do you know that seventeen
bottles of rye whiskey were sent out from the town this afternoon
to that innocent and unsuspecting school house? Seventeen bottles of
whiskey hidden in between the blackboard and the wall, and every single
man that attends that meeting,--mark my words, every single man,--will
drink his fill of the abominable stuff at the expense of the Liberal
candidate!"

Just as soon as the speaker said this, you could see the Smith men at
the meeting look at one another in injured surprise, and before the
speech was half over the hall was practically emptied.

After that the total prohibition plank was changed and the committee
substituted a declaration in favour of such a form of restrictive
license as should promote temperance while encouraging the manufacture
of spirituous liquors, and by a severe regulation of the liquor traffic
should place intoxicants only in the hands of those fitted to use them.

Finally there came the great day itself, the Election Day that brought,
as everybody knows, the crowning triumph of Mr. Smith's career. There is
no need to speak of it at any length, because it has become a matter of
history.

In any case, everybody who has ever seen Mariposa knows just what
election day is like. The shops, of course, are, as a matter of custom,
all closed, and the bar rooms are all closed by law so that you have to
go in by the back way. All the people are in their best clothes and at
first they walk up and down the street in a solemn way just as they do
on the twelfth of July and on St. Patrick's Day, before the fun begins.
Everybody keeps looking in at the different polling places to see if
anybody else has voted yet, because, of course, nobody cares to vote
first for fear of being fooled after all and voting on the wrong side.

Most of all did the supporters of Mr. Smith, acting under his
instructions, hang back from the poll in the early hours. To Mr. Smith's
mind, voting was to be conducted on the same plan as bear-shooting.

"Hold back your votes, boys," he said, "and don't be too eager. Wait
till she begins to warm up and then let 'em have it good and hard."

In each of the polling places in Mariposa there is a returning officer
and with him are two scrutineers, and the electors, I say, peep in and
out like mice looking into a trap. But if once the scrutine