rifying Trelawney.

Already Edward Drone was beginning to feel something of what it meant
to hold office and there was creeping into his manner the quiet
self-importance which is the first sign of conscious power.

In fact, in that brief half-hour of office, Drone had a chance to
see something of what it meant. Henry McGinnis came to him and asked
straight out for a job as federal census-taker on the ground that he
was hard up and had been crippled with rheumatism all winter. Nelson
Williamson asked for the post of wharf master on the plea that he
had been laid up with sciatica all winter and was absolutely fit for
nothing. Erasmus Archer asked him if he could get his boy Pete into one
of the departments at Ottawa, and made a strong case of it by explaining
that he had tried his cussedest to get Pete a job anywhere else and it
was simply impossible. Not that Pete wasn't a willing boy, but he was
slow,--even his father admitted it,--slow as the devil, blast him, and
with no head for figures and unfortunately he'd never had the schooling
to bring him on. But if Drone could get him in at Ottawa, his father
truly believed it would be the very place for him. Surely in the Indian
Department or in the Astronomical Branch or in the New Canadian Navy
there must be any amount of opening for a boy like this? And to all of
these requests Drone found himself explaining that he would take the
matter under his very earnest consideration and that they must remember
that he had to consult his colleagues and not merely follow the dictates
of his own wishes. In fact, if he had ever in his life had any envy of
Cabinet Ministers, he lost it in this hour.

But Drone's hour was short. Even before the poll had closed in Mariposa,
the news came sweeping in, true or false, that Bagshaw was carrying
the county. The second concession had gone for Bagshaw in a regular
landslide, six votes to only two for Smith,--and all down the township
line road (where the hay farms are) Bagshaw was said to be carrying all
before him.

Just as soon as that news went round the town, they launched the
Mariposa band of the Knights of Pythias (every man in it is a Liberal)
down the Main Street with big red banners in front of it with the motto
BAGSHAW FOREVER in letters a foot high. Such rejoicing and enthusiasm
began to set in as you never saw. Everybody crowded round Bagshaw on the
steps of the Mariposa House and shook his hand and said they were proud
to see t