and our people had the best of the game, for
"the other side" had not yet put in an appearance,
whereas we were well through a main part
of our work.

              THE OTHER SIDE.

THE candidate opposed to us was the
Honourable Captain Streatham, thirty years of
age, a captain in the Royal Horse Guards yellow,
and a younger son of the Earl of Basement.
Of course, Captain Streatham opposed Carmine
politics to ours of the Mauve side. He was good
looking, and had the gift of making himself all
things to all men. Whether it was when talking
and laughing with his brother officers in the
barrack yard at Knightsbridge, telling the last
naughty anecdote in the bow window at Whites,
chaffing "a cad" as he tooled down the
regimental drag to Epsom, or discussing soberly
and solemnly the last phase of the ritualists
with his very evangelical aunt the Duchess of
Winterton, Captain Streatham always seemed
at home, always at his ease, always on good
terms with those around him. He had taken
up the Carmine tint of politics, simply because
his family had always sided with that colour.
His father the Earl was by no means a wealthy
man, and although now a member of the
Cabinet, was anxious to get "the Captain"
into parliament, in order that he might have a
chance of some permanent Colonial Governorship,
Consul Generalship, or other regulation
reward of those who serve their party with
undeviating fidelity for a sufficient number of years.
The captain had one great fault, he was never
free from debt. The Earl had cleared off all his
old scores some four or five times, but he
invariably returned to the slough of stamped paper.
Lord Basement at last was tired of paying for
the captain's follies, and resolved to get him
into parliament. He paid, therefore, a large
sum into the hands of a London firm of
parliamentary agents. Once in parliament, three
or four years' assiduous attendance and steady
voting with his party, would, when joined
to Lord Basement's interest, surely get him
some good colonial or other appointment.
He might then sell his troop in the Horse
Guards, turn over a new leaf in the book
of life, and perhaps end by turning out a highly
meritorious government servant, and an
exemplary father of a family.

This was the gentleman who had been
brought to fight the battle against us. The
captain's electioneering agent was a local man, and
although he had the advantage of knowing
everybody, he had also the disadvantage of being
known to every one. In country towns everybody
interests themselves in everything that
everybody else does, and being fully aware of this,
I soon found out that Spavit – Tom Spavit, as
he was called – was poor, and that in the County
Court of the district his name was as well
known as that of the Registrar himself. Availing
myself of this knowledge, I at once had
printed a few placards and handbills, all of
which bore some more or less playful allusion
to the state of Mr. Spavit's funds. One of
these was in the form of a catechism, drawn
out in one night by Joe Sleeman, the never
sober reporter of the Mercury, and paid for with
a five pound note. It was the best day's work
he had done since he was turned out from the
London Diana's Journal, six years before, for
getting drunk when he went to report a dinner
at the Freemasons' Tavern. This catechism
was detestably vulgar and personal. But it
served our turn, and was indeed thought to be
a masterpiece of wit by many of the electors
of the place. Equally in good taste were the
jocose paragraphs put in the Northenville
Mercury, to the effect that The Honourable
Captain Streatham, accompanied by that wealthy
and influential local gentleman, Thomas Spavit,
Esq., who was well known to be one of the
leading authorities of the town on all matters
of legal process, had come down to canvass
Northenville, and that it was very uncertain
whether the captain or his devoted friend
Tommy, of King-square (the County Court was
situated in King-square) would be eventually
proposed for the honour of representing the
the town of Northenville in parliament. By
these small personalities against poor Tom (a
hard working honest fellow, but much
over-weighted with a large family in the race for
prosperity), our enemy lost several points on
the game. The honourable captain when he
heard of it, laughed, and said, that we had
scored at least thirty-five off the balls in a
game of one hundred.

"The other side" when they got to Northenville,
lost no time in setting to work. For two
or three days I had been very busy making
things pleasant with certain electors. To one I
promised a clerkship for his son in the iron
works with which Mr. Mellam was connected.
To the other I said that if our man was
returned, the tide waitership which he wanted
for his brother would be a matter of certainty.
I had in fact been so busy directing the affairs
of our own forces, that I had quite forgotten
to watch the enemies' camp, when suddenly we
heard that a ball (nominally given by Lady
Vance, a sister of Captain Streatham's, who
lived in the neighbourhood) would take place
on such an evening, at the Crown and Sceptre,
and that all the electors of the town would be
asked to meet the gentleman who, as
representative of the Carmine party, coveted the
great honour of representing the town of
Northenville in parliament.

The ball must have cost the other side a
small fortune. It was admirably managed.
Invitations were issued to all the electors and
their wives, without exception, and special
invitations sent even to many of the electioneering
staff on our side, myself amongst the
number.

Lady Vance, who did the honours of the
entertainment, was a handsome, showy,
fashionable London woman, well up in her work.
In ordinary life she would as soon have
ridden in Rotten-row with her face to the