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Manuscript Image

Manuscript page from Sunshine Sketches of a Little Town by Stephen Leacock, 1912.
Reproduced with the permission of the Stephen Leacock Museum/Archive.

THE HOSTELRY OF MR. SMITH

I don't know whether you know Mariposa. If not, it is of no consequence, for if you know Canada at all, you are probably well acquainted with a dozen towns just like it.

There it lies in the sunlight, sloping up from the little lake that spreads out at the foot of the hillside on which the town is built. There is a wharf beside the lake, and lying alongside of it a steamer that is tied to the wharf with two ropes of about the same size as they use on the Lusitania. The steamer goes nowhere in particular, for the lake is land-locked and there is no navigation for the Mariposa Belle except to "run trips" on the first of July and Queen's birthday, and to take excursions of the Knights of Pythias and the Sons