When the hospital idea was being introduced the social thermometer in the vicinity was again standing at the zero point; and he remembered that he had never had the honor of being invited by the society to any of the annual pioneer banquets.  He had received the alien “hand-out” upon all occasions, and had the same status in the community as a Chinaman.  Of course, being hitherto so much wrapped up in personality, he took no notice of his social mercury, which always stood at its minimum.  And then, as the management of the various institutions had been placed in hands which were, undoubtedly, more able and willing to cope with the difficulties than he, and as everybody seemed satisfied, there was no occasion for him raising his voice in protest throughout the dumb wilderness.  Being personally very much occupied with his own stamp mill, and the percentage of the pay-rock, he was just as pleased that no local burden should be placed across the apex of his spinal pillar.  But now he had arrived at a point where the road divided.  New scenes must be introduced into his play—­new machinery installed.  Through the microscope he saw that present conditions could not be allowed to prevail.  He was losing much valuable mineral over the dump.  He was angry.  The sensitiveness of his nature had received a shock; he had been shown up as the most unpopular man in Ashcroft.  It was time for him to have the mercury brought near to the fire.  The next time prizes were being handed around his arm would be the longest, and his voice the loudest; and they would not be booby prizes neither.  He had known men of a few weeks standing only, rise to the very apex of popularity, while he, with his ten years initiation, had not yet developed brains enough, in the estimation of the Ashcroft people, that would justify them in placing in his charge the management of the most trivial social affair.  What had he done that this measure should be constantly graduated out to him?  Well, things would be different.  He would “can” personality and take up the “big mitt” of public things.  But how was this revolution in the private disposition of a man to be accomplished?  He had discovered the result, but not the cause; so he began rooting among the sage brush of the sand downs for the foundation stone of his social submergence.

“I have it!” he shouted one day.  “If one wishes to make a puncture in the affairs of this world one must assert himself; one must smite the table top with one’s fist every morning before breakfast.  One must assume such an atmosphere that the whole community will be cognizant of one’s presence, to-day, to-morrow, and all the time.  One must assert one’s personality.  I have been asleep, stagnant, dormant, an Egyptian mummy.  I have allowed others to take the cream while I have been passively contented with the whey.  I have allowed others to elbow me to one side like a log languishing in the eddy of a river.  Henceforth I will be in the centre of the stream.  I will rush down with the torrent and be “It” in the Ashcroft “smart set” illumination.