| ONE. | The Hostelry of Mr. Smith |
| TWO. | The Speculations of Jefferson Thorpe |
| THREE. | The Marine Excursions of the Knights of Pythias |
| FOUR. | The Ministrations of the Rev. Mr. Drone |
| FIVE. | The Whirlwind Campaign in Mariposa |
| SIX. | The Beacon on the Hill |
| SEVEN. | The Extraordinary Entanglement of Mr. Pupkin |
| EIGHT. | The Fore-ordained Attachment of Zena Pepperleigh and Peter Pupkin |
| NINE. | The Mariposa Bank Mystery |
| TEN. | The Great Election in Missinaba County |
| ELEVEN. | The Candidacy of Mr. Smith |
| TWELVE. | L'Envoi. The Train to Mariposa |
I know no way in which a writer may more fittingly introduce his work to the public than by giving a brief account of who and what he is. By this means some of the blame for what he has done is very properly shifted to the extenuating circumstances of his life.
I was born at Swanmoor, Hants, England, on December 30, 1869. I am not aware that there was any particular conjunction of the planets at the time, but should think it extremely likely. My parents migrated to Canada in 1876, and I decided to go with them. My father took up a farm near Lake Simcoe, in Ontario. This was during the hard times of Canadian farming, and my father was just able by great diligence to pay the hired men and, in years of plenty, to raise enough grain to have seed for the next year's crop without buying any. By this process my brothers and I were inevitably driven off the land, and have become professors, business men, and engineers, instead of being able to grow up as farm labourers. Yet I saw enough of farming to speak exuberantly in political addresses of the joy of early rising and the deep sleep, both of body and intellect, that is induced by honest manual toil.
I was educated at Upper Canada College, Toronto, of which I was head boy in 1887. From there I went to the University of Toronto, where I graduated in 1891. At the University I spent my entire time in the acquisition of languages, living, dead, and half-dead, and