Tom asked every man and woman he saw to the wedding party. The hotel keeper was invited with his wife and daughter and two or three keepers of stores who came to the hotel to bring supplies were asked, commanded to come. Then there were the men of the factories, the office men and superintendents, new men who had never seen Clara. They also, with the town bankers and other solid fellows with money in the banks, who were investors in Tom's enterprises, were invited. “Put on the best clothes you've got in the world and have your women folks do the same,” he said laughing. “Then you get out to my house as soon as you can. If you haven't any way to get there, come to the Bidwell House. I'll get you out.” Tom did not forget that in order to have his wedding party go as he wished, he would need to serve drinks. Jim Priest went from bar to bar. “What wine you got--good wine? How much you got?” he asked at each place. Steve Hunter had in the cellar of his house six cases of champagne kept there against a time when some important guest, the Governor of the State or a Congressman, might come to town. He felt that on such occasions it was up to him to see that the town, as he said, “did itself proud.” When he heard what was going on he hurried to the Bidwell House and offered to send his entire stock of wine out to Tom's house, and his offer was accepted. * * * * * Jim Priest had an idea. When the guests were all assembled and when the farm kitchen was filled with cooks and waiters who stumbled over each other, he took his idea to Tom. There was, he explained, a short-cut through fields and along lanes to a point on the county seat road, three miles from the house. “I'll go there and hide myself,” he said. “When they come along, suspecting nothing, I'll cut out on horseback and get here a half hour before them. You make every one in the house hide and keep still when they drive into the yard. We'll put out all the lights. We'll give that pair the surprise of their lives.”