We drove in state to the hotel. Previous to this I shook hands warmly with the Station-master, who scowled at me--he was a Home-Ruler and a Baptist--and gave four porters half-a-crown apiece for lifting our luggage on to the roof of a cab. I also handed a newsboy sixpence for a copy of the local bi-weekly organ which supported our cause, and tendered half-a-sovereign in payment for a bunch of violets and primroses--our party colours in this district were purple and gold--which were proffered me outside the station by an ancient flower-selling dame who, Cash hissed into my ear, happened to be the mother of four strapping and fully-enfranchised sons; and presented an unwashed stranger who was holding open the cab door for us with a token of affection and esteem which could readily be commuted into several hours' beer.

On arriving at the hotel I handed the cabman a fare roughly equivalent to the cash value of the cab, and then proceeded to distribute largesse to a crowd of menials who kindly undertook the task of lifting the luggage from the roof and conveying it to our rooms. The horse, having no vote, received no pecuniary return for its labours, but was rewarded for its devotion to Conservative principles by a lump of sugar, which Phillis had been tightly holding in a moist hand ever since Cash had handed it to her at the station--a pretty and thoughtful act of disinterested kindness which was duly noted in the _Stoneleigh Herald_ next morning, and effectually secured the votes of several elusive but sentimental wobblers on polling day.

After this unostentatious entry into my constituency I duly established myself in my apartments, where I spent most of the afternoon writing cheques. The restoration of the North Transept proved to be in an even more deplorable state of backwardness than I had feared; but the Dean ultimately left me with the utmost expressions of goodwill, promising to reassure the most exacting spirits in Cathedral society as to my soundness on the questions of (1) Disestablishment and (2) Secular Education in Elementary Schools.

Thereafter I received the captain of the local football team, who begged to remind me that my subscription of five guineas, as Honorary Vice-President of the club, was now due, and further requested that I would do himself and colleagues the honour of kicking-off in the match against the Scrappington Hotstuffs on Saturday week. (Saturday next, I heard afterwards, had been reserved for my rival.) He finally departed with my cheque in his pocket, and, I expect, his tongue in his cheek.

Robin next let in upon me a sub-section of the General Purposes Committee of the Municipal Library, who begged that I would kindly consent to open the new wing thereof, jointly with the rival Candidate, at three o'clock next Wednesday; and intimated as an afterthought that the oak bookcase in the eastern alcove was still unpaid for. They departed calling down blessings upon my head. (Five pounds ten.)

Next, after a brief call from a gentleman in a blue ribbon, who came to solicit a guinea for the Band of Hope, and who left in exchange one hundred copies of a picture of the interior of a drunkard's stomach, executed in three colours, came Beery Bill, to whom the reader has already been introduced. He had not come to talk Politics, he said, but just to have a quiet chat with one whom he hoped he could regard as a personal friend. (I got out my fountain pen.) The chat materialised presently into an intimation that the Licensed Victuallers Benevolent Something-or-Other was short of cash; and my visitor suggested that a trifle in support of the charities of that most deserving institution would come gracefully from my pocket. On handing me the receipt he informed me that the brewing trade was in a bad way, and that he looked to me to do something for it if he used his influence on my behalf at the Election.

The next visitor was an eccentric but harmless old gentleman who eked out a precarious livelihood as a Herbalist--whatever that may be--in the most plebeian quarter of the town. He inhabited a small and stuffy shop up a discreet alley, suffered much from small boys, sold curious drugs and potions of his own composition, and prescribed for persons whose means or modesty precluded them from consulting an orthodox practitioner.

He was threatened, it appeared, with the penalties of the law. He had sold a "love-philtre" (pronounced infallible for recalling errant _fiances_ to a sense of duty) to an amorous kitchen-maid who was seeking to rekindle the sacred flame in the bosom of an unresponsive policeman.

The damozel had mingled the potion in a plate of beefsteak pudding, and had handed the same out of the scullery window to her peripatetic swain; with the sole result that that limb of the law had been immediately and violently sick, and, the moment he felt sufficiently recovered to do so, had declared the already debilitated match at an end. The kitchen-maid, rendered desperate, had told him the whole truth; and consequently my esteemed caller was now wanted by the police.

The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be attributed to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and cinnamon), but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had inadvertently handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer, which contained ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use in the case of small boys who had swallowed sixpences. _Hinc lacrymcoe_. In spite of his complete consciousness of his own innocence, he now found himself compelled in a few days' time to defend his conduct in a court of law.

The proceedings would cost money, of which he of course possessed little or none. He had called, he said, confident in the hope that I would assist him to defray the expense of vindicating his integrity as a high-class Herbalist by purchasing six bottles of his world-renowned specific for neuralgia, from which dread malady he had been informed--quite incorrectly, by the way--that I occasionally suffered.

The thirty shillings thus subscribed, together with a few odd coins which he himself had contrived to scrape together during a long life of thrift, would secure the services of a skilled advocate, who would doubtless be able to prove to the satisfaction of justice that no high-class Herbalist would ever dream, save in the way of kindness, of putting tartaric acid into a policeman's beefsteak pudding.

He added, rather inconsequently, that he had voted Conservative at the last three elections, and had moreover persuaded all the other members of the Royal and Ancient Brotherhood of High-class Herbalists to do the same. (One pound ten.)

My last visitor was a seedy individual in corduroys, who asked for a private interview with the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted, informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One has to be on the look-out against persons of this type.

I concluded the afternoon by a rather unsatisfactory interview with Mr Cash. He was by nature a boisterous and optimistic person, but on this occasion I found him inclined to be reticent and gloomy. He announced with a shake of the head that my rival was a very strong candidate; and finally, after a certain amount of pressing, admitted that I was not altogether as universally acceptable to my own side as I might have been.

"You are not violent enough, Mr Inglethwaite," he said. "You sympathise too much with the point of view of the opposite side. That's fatal."

I turned to Robin.

"You hear that?" I said. "Don't you ever call me a prejudiced old Tory again, Robin."

"Then," continued the dolorous Cash, "you are too squeamish. Those posters that you wouldn't allow to be put up--that was simply throwing away good votes. Politics in this part of the country can't be played with kid gloves. Then there are the meetings. You don't let the other side have it hot enough. Call 'em robbers and liars! That's what wins an election!"

"I suppose it is," I said mournfully. "Robin, we must put our opinions in our pockets and beat the party drum. Come on, let us go to the Committee Rooms!"

For the next fortnight we worked like galley-slaves. Each morning Kitty and I drove round the town in an open carriage-and-pair decorated with our colours, bowing to such of our constituents as would look at us, and punctiliously returning any salutes we received. Occasionally whole-hearted supporters would give us a cheer, and occasionally--rather more frequently, it seemed to me--disagreeable persons booed at us. Once we were held up outside a hide-and-tallow work by a gang of workmen who wished to address a few questions to the Candidate. We came well out of that ordeal, for both Kitty and Dolly happened to be in the carriage that day, and they so completely captivated the spokesman of the deputation--no wonder! a pretty woman never looks so attractive as in furs--that that gentleman concluded a catechism of unpremeditated brevity and incoherence by proposing a vote of confidence in, coupled with three cheers for, Mr Inglethwaite and his young ladies!

On another occasion a gnarled and fervent Radical of the bootmaking persuasion hobbled to the door of his establishment, and waving clenched and uplifted fists, called down upon us and our retreating equipage all the curses at the command of a rather extensive vocabulary until we were out of earshot.

Occasionally little girls threw posies into the carriage: little boys, not to be outdone in politeness, threw stones: and altogether I felt very much as the Honourable Samuel Slumkey must have done upon the historic occasion on which he solicited the votes of the electors of the borough of Eatanswill.

Talking of Eatanswill, I had already made the acquaintance of Mr Horatio Fizkin in the person of my opponent, Mr Alderman Stridge, Wholesale Provision Merchant and Italian Warehouseman. His selection as Liberal Candidate was a blow to us: we had hoped for nothing worse than a briefless carpet-bagger from the Temple, as on previous occasions.

However, the Alderman on our introduction was extremely affable, and expressed a hope, with the air of one discovering the sentiment for the first time, that the best man might win; to which I, as in duty bound, replied that I hoped not; and we parted with mutual expressions of goodwill and esteem, to deride each other's politics and bespatter each other's characters on countless platforms and doorsteps until we should meet again, after the fray, at the counting of the votes.

On returning from our morning drive (which usually included an open-air meeting) we took luncheon, generally in the presence of various anaemic young men who represented local organs of public opinion, and who expected the long-suffering candidate to set forth his views between mouthfuls of chop and sips of sherry. I usually turned these over to Robin, who understood their ways; and he charmed them so wisely that even the relentless Cash was compelled to admit that our press notices might have been worse.

Robin was a tower of strength. Indeed he and Dolly were my two chief lieutenants; Dilly and Dicky, as became a pair who had only been married a few months, proving but broken reeds. A week's electioneering proved sufficient for their requirements; and, declining flatly to "grin like a dog and run about the city"--Dilly's pithy summary of the art of canvassing--any longer, they left us ten days before polling-day to pay a country-house visit. But Robin was everywhere. He answered my letters and he interviewed reporters. He could keep a meeting in hand (pending my arrival from another) with such success that when I finally appeared upon the platform to take up the wondrous tale of my party's perfections, the audience were loth to let Robin go. In six days he acquired a knowledge of the wants, peculiarities, weaknesses, and traditions of my constituents which had occupied all my powers of concentration and absorption for six arduous years. He used to drop into his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with him--not at him--has gone far on the road to success.

Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the paper, written large for me to read, said--_Compare Stridge to the Old Lady of Dippleton_. What the lady had done I did not know, neither had I time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and, after pausing for a brief drink of water, concluded my sentence--

"--and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating such a policy as that which he has had the--the--yes, the _effrontery_ to lay before a clear-thinking and broad-minded Stoneleigh audience last night, has shown himself to be no wiser in his generation, no better or more statesmanlike in character, than--than--what shall we say? than"--I glanced at the paper on the table--"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"

There was a great roar of laughter, and I sat down. I was ultimately awarded a vote of thanks, which should by rights have been given to the heroine of my closing allusion. I may mention here that no subsequent inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old Lady of Dippleton _had_ done. Probably it was one of those things that no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at that.

Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She could ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives apparently without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile; sheepish young men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and feet in her presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. Her methods were entirely her own, and gratifyingly free from the superior and patronising airs usually adopted by fine ladies when they go to solicit the votes of that variegated and much-graded community which they cheerfully and indiscriminately sum up as "the lower classes."

Let us follow her as she flits on her way to pay a morning call upon Mr Noah Gulching of Jackson's Row.

Mr Gulching, she finds, is absent in search of a job, while Mrs Gulching, thoroughly cross and worried, is doing the housework with one hand and dangling a fractious teething baby from the other. The rest of the family are engaged in playing games of skill and chance (on the win, tie, or wrangle principle), in the middle of the street outside; and piercing screams testify to the fact that John William Gulching, aged two, had just been uprooted by Mary Kate Gulching, who wants to lay out a new Hop-Scotch court, from the flagstone upon which he has been seated for the last half hour and dumped down upon another, the warming of which, even his untutored sensations inform him, will be a matter of some time and trouble.

Dolly, not a whit dismayed by a thoroughly ungracious reception, tucks up her skirt, rolls up her sleeves, finishes washing-up, makes a bed, and peels some potatoes. Then she takes the baby and attends to its more conspicuous wants, what time Mrs Gulching, thoroughly mollified,--she had thought at first that Dolly was "a person with tracks,"--goes round the corner to the "Drop Inn," at which hostelry the work of which her spouse is habitually in pursuit invariably goes to ground, and brings that gentleman home with her, to find Dolly playing with a spotless infant whom she gradually recognises as her own offspring.

Dolly begins at once.

"Good morning, Mr Gulching! I expect you think I am one of those horrid canvassers."

Mr Gulching, a little taken aback, admits that such was his impression.

"Well, I'm not," says Dolly. (_Oh, Dolly!_) "I suppose there may be some excuse for canvassing among people who do not take much interest in politics,--though _I_ shouldn't like to do it,--but it would be rather a waste of time for me or any one else to come and try on that sort of thing with _you_, wouldn't it, Mr Gulching?"

Mr Gulching, outwardly frigid but inwardly liquescent, agrees that this is so; and adds in a truculent growl that he would like to see 'em try it on.

"What I really want," continues Dolly, "is your _advice_. I am told that you are so respected here, and have such a knowledge of the requirements of the neighbourhood, that you might be inclined to give us a little help in a scheme which Mr Inglethwaite has in hand. Schemes for the improvement of some of the houses--not snug little cribs like this, but the homes of people who are not so clever and able to take care of themselves as you--and the supplying of more amusements in the evenings; entertainments, lectures----"

"Teetotal?" inquires Mr Gulching hoarsely.

"Oh dear, no. I am sure Mr Inglethwaite would not wish to deprive any one of his glass of beer. He quite agrees with your views about moderate drinking." (This, I may mention, is a slanderous libel on me, but it sounds all right as Dolly says it.) "But he knows that the success of his efforts will depend entirely upon whether he has the support of such men as yourself--men who know what they want and will see that they get it. We can't do without you, you see," she adds, with a bewitching little smile.

Visible swelling on the part of Mr Gulching. Dolly gets up.

"Well, I know you are a busy man, Mr Gulching, so I mustn't keep you listening to a woman's chatter any more. I'm afraid I haven't explained things very deeply, but then you men are such creatures for wanting to get to the root of the matter, aren't they, Mrs Gulching? However, Mr Inglethwaite will call shortly and discuss things with you. I know he wants your advice. Meanwhile, perhaps you will mention the matter to any friends of yours whom you think would be likely to help us, won't you?

Good morning, and thank you so much for granting me this--er--interview.

An Englishman's house is his castle, isn't it? That is why it was so good of you to let me come in. Good-bye, Mrs Gulching. He's a perfectly sweet little chap, and I must come and see him again, if I may." (The last remark is a little ambiguous, but probably refers to the baby.)

And Dolly, with a friendly nod to the rest of the family (who are by this time drawn up _en echelon_ at the street door, under the personal direction of Violet Amelia Gulching), sails out, followed by a gratified leer from the greatly inflated Mr Gulching, having secured that free and independent elector's vote without even having asked for it. And yet some women are crying out for the right to control elections!

At the street corner, with a persuasive finger in the buttonhole of an unconvinced Socialist (and a vigilant eye straining down the long and unlovely vista of Jackson's Row), Dolly usually encounters Robert Chalmers Fordyce.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

A HOSTAGE TO FORTUNE.

Nomination day came, and I was duly entered by my proprietors for the Election Stakes, though I was painfully aware that my selection as Candidate was not universally popular.