oke in in the case of particular
individuals, often the most unlikely, and quelled their opposition.

Take, for example, the editor of the Newspacket. I suppose there wasn't
a greater temperance advocate in town. Yet Alphonse queered him with an
Omelette a la License in one meal.

Or take Pepperleigh himself, the judge of the Mariposa court. He was
put to the bad with a game pie,--pate normand aux fines herbes--the
real thing, as good as a trip to Paris in itself. After eating it,
Pepperleigh had the common sense to realize that it was sheer madness to
destroy a hotel that could cook a thing like that.

In the same way, the secretary of the School Board was silenced with a
stuffed duck a la Ossawippi.

Three members of the town council were converted with a Dindon farci a
la Josh Smith.

And then, finally, Mr. Diston persuaded Dean Drone to come, and as soon
as Mr. Smith and Alphonse saw him they landed him with a fried flounder
that even the apostles would have appreciated.

After that, every one knew that the license question was practically
settled. The petition was all over the town. It was printed in duplicate
at the Newspacket and you could see it lying on the counter of every
shop in Mariposa. Some of the people signed it twenty or thirty times.

It was the right kind of document too. It began--"Whereas in the bounty
of providence the earth putteth forth her luscious fruits and her
vineyards for the delight and enjoyment of mankind--" It made you
thirsty just to read it. Any man who read that petition over was wild to
get to the Rats' Cooler.

When it was all signed up they had nearly three thousand names on it.

Then Nivens, the lawyer, and Mr. Gingham (as a provincial official) took
it down to the county town, and by three o'clock that afternoon the
news had gone out from the long distance telephone office that Smith's
license was renewed for three years.

Rejoicings! Well, I should think so! Everybody was down wanting to
shake hands with Mr. Smith. They told him that he had done more to boom
Mariposa than any ten men in town. Some of them said he ought to run
for the town council, and others wanted to make him the Conservative
candidate for the next Dominion election. The caff was a mere babel
of voices, and even the Rats' Cooler was almost floated away from its
moorings.

And in the middle of it all, Mr. Smith found time to say to Billy,
the desk clerk: "Take the cash registers out of the caff an