art. I know that Henry
Mullins did. You could see it. The first day he came down to the lunch,
all dressed up with the American Beauty and the white waistcoat. The
second day he only wore a pink carnation and a grey waistcoat. The third
day he had on a dead daffodil and a cardigan undervest, and on the last
day, when the high school teachers should have been there, he only wore
his office suit and he hadn't even shaved. He looked beaten.

It was that night that he went up to the rectory to tell the news to
Dean Drone. It had been arranged, you know, that the rector should not
attend the lunches, so as to let the whole thing come as a surprise;
so that all he knew about it was just scraps of information about the
crowds at the lunch and how they cheered and all that. Once, I believe,
he caught sight of the Newspacket with a two-inch headline: A QUARTER
OF A MILLION, but he wouldn't let himself read further because it would
have spoilt the surprise.

I saw Mullins, as I say, go up the street on his way to Dean Drone's.
It was middle April and there was ragged snow on the streets, and the
nights were dark still, and cold. I saw Mullins grit his teeth as he
walked, and I know that he held in his coat pocket his own cheque for
the hundred, with the condition taken off it, and he said that there
were so many skunks in Mariposa that a man might as well be in the Head
Office in the city.

The Dean came out to the little gate in the dark,--you could see the
lamplight behind him from the open door of the rectory,--and he shook
hands with Mullins and they went in together.

SIX. The Beacon on the Hill

Mullins said afterward that it was ever so much easier than he thought
it would have been. The Dean, he said, was so quiet. Of course if Mr.
Drone had started to swear at Mullins, or tried to strike him, it would
have been much harder. But as it was he was so quiet that part of the
time he hardly seemed to follow what Mullins was saying. So Mullins
was glad of that, because it proved that the Dean wasn't feeling
disappointed as, in a way, he might have.

Indeed, the only time when the rector seemed animated and excited in the
whole interview was when Mullins said that the campaign had been ruined
by a lot of confounded mugwumps. Straight away the Dean asked if those
mugwumps had really prejudiced the outcome of the campaign. Mullins
said there was no doubt of it, and the Dean enquired if the presence
of mugwumps was fat