e for Provincial Parliamentary honours, the cup for
the hundred yards race, and other cups from other individuals more or
less deeply interested in Dominion, Provincial, and Municipal politics.
The prize list secured, it needed only a skillful manipulation of the
local press and a judicious but persistent personal correspondence
to swell the ranks of the competitors in the various events, and
thus ensure a monster attendance of the people from the neighbouring
townships and from the city near by.

The weather being assured, Fatty's anxieties were mostly allayed, for he
had on the file in his office acceptance letters from the distinguished
men who were to cast the spell of their oratory over the assembled
multitude, as also from the big men in the athletic world who had
entered for the various events in the programme of sports. It was
a master stroke of diplomacy that resulted in the securing for the
hammer-throwing contest the redoubtable and famous Duncan Ross of
Zorra, who had at first disdained the bait of the Maplehill Dominion Day
picnic, but in some mysterious way had at length been hooked and landed.
For Duncan was a notable man and held the championship of the Zorras;
and indeed in all Ontario he was second only to the world-famous Rory
Maclennan of Glengarry, who had been to Braemar itself and was beaten
there only by a fluke. How he came to agree to be present at the
Maplehill picnic "Black Duncan" could not quite understand, but had he
compared notes with McGee, the champion of the London police force and
of various towns and cities of the western peninsula, he would doubtless
have received some enlightenment. To the skill of the same master hand
was due the appearance upon the racing list of the Dominion Day picnic
of such distinguished names as Cahill of London, Fullerton of Woodstock,
and especially of Eugene La Belle of nowhere in particular, who held the
provincial championship for skating and was a runner of provincial fame.

In the racing Fatty was particularly interested because his young
brother Wilbur, of whom he was uncommonly proud, a handsome lad, swift
and graceful as a deer, was to make his first essay for more than local
honours.

The lists for the other events were equally well filled and every
detail of the arrangements for the day had passed under the secretary's
personal review. The feeding of the multitude was in charge of the
Methodist Ladies' Aid, an energetic and exceptionally busin