do when there's an important thing like this
under way.

So after things had been got pretty well into shape in this way, Duff
asked Mullins one night, straight out, if he would be chairman of
the Central Committee. He sprung it on him and Mullins had no time to
refuse, but he put it to Duff straight whether he would be treasurer.
And Duff had no time to refuse.

That gave things a start, and within a week they had the whole
organization on foot. There was the Grand Central Committee and six
groups or sub-committees of twenty men each, and a captain for
every group. They had it all arranged on the lines most likely to be
effective.

In one group there were all the bankers, Mullins and Duff and Pupkin
(with the cameo pin), and about four others. They had their photographs
taken at Ed Moore's studio, taken in a line with a background of
icebergs--a winter scene--and a pretty penetrating crowd they looked, I
can tell you. After all, you know, if you get a crowd of representative
bank men together in any financial deal, you've got a pretty
considerable leverage right away.

In the second group were the lawyers, Nivens and Macartney and the
rest--about as level-headed a lot as you'd see anywhere. Get the lawyers
of a town with you on a thing like this and you'll find you've got a
sort of brain power with you that you'd never get without them.

Then there were the business men--there was a solid crowd for
you,--Harrison, the harness maker, and Glover, the hardware man, and
all that gang, not talkers, perhaps, but solid men who can tell you to
a nicety how many cents there are in a dollar. It's all right to talk
about education and that sort of thing, but if you want driving power
and efficiency, get business men. They're seeing it every day in the
city, and it's just the same in Mariposa. Why, in the big concerns
in the city, if they found out a man was educated, they wouldn't have
him,--wouldn't keep him there a minute. That's why the business men have
to conceal it so much.

Then in the other teams there were the doctors and the newspaper men and
the professional men like Judge Pepperleigh and Yodel the auctioneer.

It was all organized so that every team had its headquarters, two of
them in each of the three hotels--one upstairs and one down. And it
was arranged that there would be a big lunch every day, to be held in
Smith's caff, round the corner of Smith's Northern Health Resort and
Home of the Wissanotti A