However, as Cash remarked, "It is canvassing from door to door that does the trick, and there you have the bulge on Stridge. He's not a bad old buffer himself, but they hate his wife like poison. She drives up to their doors in a silver-plated brougham with a double-breasted coachman, and tells 'em to vote for Stridge, not because he used to live in a one-roomed house himself--which he did, and her too--but because he's a local god-on-wheels. Of course they won't stick that."

I also continued to address meetings, receive deputations, and generally solicit patronage in a way that would have made a cab-tout blush for shame. As a recreation I kicked off at football matches and laid foundation-stones. The most important function in which I took part was the opening of the new wing of the Municipal Library. The ceremony, which was by way of being a non-party affair, took place on a blustering February afternoon. The _elite_ of Stoneleigh were picturesquely grouped upon the steps of the main entrance of the Library, from the topmost of which the Mayor, the Dean, and the Candidates addressed a shivering and apathetic audience below.

Fortunately, the company were too exclusively occupied in holding on their hats and blowing their blue noses to pay much attention to the improving harangues of Mr Stridge and myself; which was perhaps just as well, for men who have three or four highly critical and possibly hostile meetings to address later in the day are not likely to waste good things upon an assembly who probably cannot hear them, and will only say "Hear, hear!" in sepulchral tones if they do.

The actual opening of the wing was accomplished quite informally (and I may say unexpectedly) by Kitty and Mrs Stridge--a fearsome matron, who looked like a sort of Nonconformist Boadicea--who were huddling together for warmth in the recess of the doorway. On a pedestal before them lay two small gold keys, with which they were presently to unlock the door itself, what time I, in trumpet tones, declared the Library open.

Whether through natural modesty or a desire to escape the assaults of the wind, the two ladies shrank back so closely into the door that that accommodating portal, evidently deeming it ungallant to wait even for a golden key under such circumstances, incontinently flew open, and Mesdames Inglethwaite and Stridge subsided gracefully into the arms of a spectacled and embarrassed Librarian, who was formally waiting inside to receive the company at the proper moment.

After that, the proceedings, which so far had been almost as bleak as the weather, went with a roar to the finish.

But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless drudgery.

The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on these occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir themselves and take sides. A week before the election there was not an impartial or unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between supporters of either party became frequent and serious. On the first occasion, when a Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by discharging a small gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal opponent, and the Liberal retaliated by felling the Conservative to the earth with a pint-pot, Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one another apologising for the exuberance of our friends. A week later, when certain upholders of my cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an assortment of Stridge's own eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's white-jacketed assistants in the eye, and severely damaging the frontage of Mr Stridge's Italian warehouse--whereupon local and immediate supporters of the cause of Stridge squared matters by putting three bombardiers into a horse-trough--Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort of regret to one another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid rapturous cheers, at our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of intimidation and hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary to bolster up a barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows that things were tuning up to concert pitch.

Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were not by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and talked largely about the swing of the pendulum--almost as useful a phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory--and other phenomena of reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose mine.

With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material _aere perennius_, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up," from my humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one morning looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.

"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked.

"Feeling quite well--eh?"

"Just a _teeny_ headache, daddy. But"--hastily--"I can come with you to the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it will be such fun!"

"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your bed-time."

"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do _love_ pantomimes--especially the clowns!" She wriggled ecstatically.

Even the revelation of the plain truth--that the pantomime would be called by another name and the clowns would appear in mufti--failed to assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic sensation promised by a meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in her small hands; and, man-like, I threw the _onus negandi_ upon Eve's shoulders.

"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.

Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters insisted on calling "the _elite_ of the _bon ton_" would be ranged upon the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John Champion, Robin,--they always wanted him now,--and the much-enduring Candidate.

The audience would, further, be made the recipients of a few remarks from the Chair and (unless something providential happened) from Dubberley, who was to second a vote of thanks to somebody--a performance which might take anything up to fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of oratory, and a further proof, if any were needed, that the English are a hardy race.

Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed. I am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass, being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and Who Knows You!"

After a hasty round of the Committee Rooms I returned to our hostelry, the Cathedral Arms, where, after disposing of two reporters who wanted an advance copy of my evening's speech, and having effusively thanked a pompous individual for a sheaf of statistics on a subject which I cannot recall, but in which no one outside an asylum could have reasonably been expected to take any interest whatever, and which I was at liberty to quote (with due acknowledgments) to any extent I pleased, I sat down with Champion and Robin, faint yet pursuing, to fortify myself with roast-beef and whisky for the labours of the evening.

Presently Kitty entered, with Dolly.

"_Who_ do you think has just arrived?" she said.

"I don't know. Not a deputation, I hope!"

"No. Gerald--from school."

"Great Scott! Expelled?"

"Oh no. It's his half-term _exeat_. I had forgotten all about it. As it just falls in with the Election, he has come to see you through, he says."

"Right! Give him some food and a bed, and we'll send him round with one of the brakes to-morrow, to bring people up to the poll. He has a gentle compelling way about him that should be useful to us. Has he brought his inarticulate friend?"

"Yes."

"Well, tell them to ask at the office for bedrooms."

"They have done that already," said Dolly. "They are down in the kitchen now, ordering dinner. They don't propose to go to the meeting. 'Better fun outside,' they say."

"Lucky little devils!" remarked the Candidate, with feeling.

"And, Adrian," said Kitty, "I don't think I'll come either. I'm rather bothered about Philly."

I laid down my knife and fork.

"What do you mean? Is she really ill?"

"N-no. I don't think so, but she is very feverish and wretched, poor kiddy. I tried to get hold of Dr Martin this afternoon, but he was miles away on an urgent case, and won't be back till to-morrow. But I got Dr Farquharson----"

"Roaring Radical!" said I in horror-struck tones.

--"Yes, dear, but such a nice old thing; and Scotch too, Robin----"

"Aberdonian," said Robin dubiously.

"Well," continued my wife, "he said she would need care, and must stay in bed. He was in a tearing hurry, as he had to go on to one of Stridge's meetings--horrid creature!--but he promised to come again on his way home. Do you think it very important that I should come with you?"

I turned to my secretary.

"What's your opinion, Robin?"

"I think Mrs Inglethwaite should come. They like to see her on the platform, I know."

"If the Candidate's wife does not appear, people say she is too grand for them," put in Champion.

"I'll stay with Philly, Kit," said Dolly.

"Will you? You dear! But I know you want to come yourself."

"Never mind. It doesn't matter."

And so it was arranged.

We found the theatre packed to suffocation. A heated band of musicians (whose degrees must have been conferred _honoris causa_) had just concluded a set of airs whose sole excuse for existence was their patriotic character, and Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks) was rising to his feet, when our party appeared on the platform. Election fever was running high by this time; the critical spirit was almost entirely obliterated by a truly human desire to cut the preliminaries and hit somebody in the eye; and we were greeted with deafening cheers.

Presently Champion was introduced and called upon to speak. He was personally unknown to the crowd before him, although his name was familiar to them. But in five minutes he had the entire audience in his grip. He made them laugh, and he made them cheer; he made them breathe hard, and he made them chuckle. There were moments when the vast throng sat in death-like silence, while Champion, with his voice dropped almost to a whisper, cajoled them as a woman cajoles a man. Then suddenly he would blare out another battle-call, and provoke a great storm of cheering. He made little use of gesture--occasionally he punctuated a remark with an impressive forefinger, but he had the most wonderful voice I have ever heard. I sat and watched him with whole-hearted admiration. It is true that he was not doing our cause any particular good. He had forgotten that he was there to make a party speech, to decry his opponents, and crack up his friends. He was soaring away into other regions, and--most wonderful of all--he was taking his audience with him. He besought them to be men, to play the game, to think straight, to awaken to a sense of responsibility, and to remember the magnitude and responsibility of their task as controllers of an Empire.

He breathed into them for a moment a portion of his own great spirit; and many a small tradesman and dull-souled artisan realised that night, for the first (and possibly the last) time, that the summit of the Universe is not composed of hides and tallow, and that there are higher things than the loaves and fishes of party politics and the petty triumphs of a contested election.

From a strictly tactical point of view all this was useless, and therefore dangerous. But for a brief twenty minutes we were gods, Utopians, Olympians, joyously planning out a scheme of things as they should be, to the entire oblivion of things as they are. That is always worth something.