Why, Pupkin's father,--what's the use of trying to conceal it any longer?--was the senior partner in the law firm of Pupkin, Pupkin and Pupkin.If you know the Maritime Provinces at all, you've heard of the Pupkins.The name is a household word from Chedabucto to Chidabecto.And, for the matter of that, the law firm and the fact that Pupkin senior had been an Attorney General was the least part of it.Attorney General! Why, there's no money in that! It's no better than the Senate.No, no, Pupkin senior, like so many lawyers, was practically a promoter, and he blew companies like bubbles, and when he wasn't in the Maritime Provinces he was in Boston and New York raising money and floating loans, and when they had no money left in New York he floated it in London: and when he had it, he floated on top of it big rafts of lumber on the Miramichi and codfish on the Grand Banks and lesser fish in the Fundy Bay.You've heard perhaps of the Tidal Transportation Company, and Fundy Fisheries Corporation, and the Paspebiac Pulp and Paper Unlimited? Well; all of those were Pupkin senior under other names.So just imagine him in Mariposa!
Wouldn't he be utterly foolish there? Just imagine him meeting Jim Eliot and treating him like a druggist merely because he ran a drug store! or speaking to Jefferson Thorpe as if he were a barber simply because he shaved for money! Why, a man like that could ruin young Pupkin in Mariposa in half a day, and Pupkin knew it.
That wouldn't matter so much, but think of the Pepperleighs and Zena! Everything.would be over with them at once.Pupkin knew just what the judge thought of riches and luxuries.How often had he heard the judge pass sentences of life imprisonment on Pierpont Morgan and Mr.Rockefeller.How often had Pupkin heard him say that any man who received more than three thousand dollars a year (that was the judicial salary in the Missinaba district) was a mere robber, unfit to shake the hand of an honest man.Bitter! I should think he was!
He was not so bitter, perhaps, as Mr.Muddleson, the principal of the Mariposa high school, who said that any man who received more than fifteen hundred dollars was a public enemy.He was certainly not so bitter as Trelawney, the post-master, who said that any man who got from society more than thirteen hundred dollars (apart from a legitimate increase in recognition of a successful election) was a danger to society.Still, he was bitter.They all were in Mariposa.
Pupkin could just imagine how they would despise his father!
And Zena! That was the worst of all.How often had, Pupkin heard her say that she simply hated diamonds wouldn't wear them, despised them, wouldn't give a thank you for a whole tiara of them! As for motor cars and steam yachts,--well, it was pretty plain that that sort of thing had no chance with Zena Pepperleigh.Why, she had told Pupkin one night in the canoe that she would only marry a man who was poor and had his way to make and would hew down difficulties for her sake.
And when Pupkin couldn't answer the argument she was quite cross and silent all the way home.
