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.
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 _élite_ 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
_ære 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 _élite_ 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."