From T. S. Staines, Tredbury-court, Fleet-street,
     London, to John Dane, Independent Office,
     Northenville:
Come up at once. Meet me to-morrow, three P.M.,
Great Northern Hotel. Six or seven hundred
pounds in your way. Don't delay an hour, or you
will lose all chance. Telegram reply to me at Great
Northern.

Now, as the Independent was always
published early on Wednesday morning, Monday
and Tuesday were, of all others, by far the
most inconvenient days in the week for Dane to
leave home. At first he determined he would
not go, but then he thought that six or seven
hundred pounds were not to be had every day.
The work was well on, and he could easily get
his reporter (provincial papers seldom have sub-
editors) to do all that remained to be done.
The London letter would only come to hand
by the first post next day, but that would merely
have to be given over to the printer. One
leader was already in type, another he could
write before the mail train passed through
Northenville. But if he was to keep the
appointment at three P.M., he must leave that
evening. Moreover, Mr. Staines, of Tredbury-
court, was a very old friend of his, and would
certainly not have summoned him to town
unless there was really need of his presence, and
a chance of his gaining money. Still, he
hesitated, and ended by sending a telegram to ask
whether Wednesday would not do as well as
Tuesday, and what the business was about.

To this he merely got the brief reply:
"Wednesday will be too late; you must come at
once." And so, finishing off his work, he
departed in all haste by that evening's train for
London.

On the Wednesday morning that Mr. Dane
was in town, there appeared the usual London
letter in the Northenville Independent. The
readers of that celebrated journal, as usual,
turned first of all to what was always considered
the most amusing and the most interesting part
of the paper, but were not a little astonished
to find that it contained nearly a column
concerning the Honourable Captain Streatham,
which was anything but flattering to that gallant
candidate for parliamentary honours. It began
by lamenting the fact that a mere guardsman,
who was quite out at elbows, should be selected
as a candidate to represent the important and
rising town of Northenville. It gave a complete
history of the money dealings of that
handsome spendthrift during the last ten years,
and at the same time let the public into certain
secrets connected with his private life which
were much more amusing than moral, and which
would certainly not have been read aloud in
any young ladies' school, even if tenanted
exclusively by "girls of the period." It went on
to say that having no other means of raising
the wind, the honourable captain was now going
to use Northenville. he would get the town to
endorse his stamped paper, as it were, by sending
him to parliament, and would then discount his
M.P.-ship by obtaining some colonial appointment,
which would enable him to retrieve his
fortunes. It asserted that not only all the
Carmine party in London was both grieved and
astonished at the selection of a candidate for
this great town, but that the government was
determined to send down another man, who
would ere long issue his address to the electors,
for the premier did not like to see his party in
the House of Commons strengthened by mere
"gay" men, who entered parliament in order to
keep out of debtors' prisons. The letter wound
up by strongly advising the electors of Northenville
to wait, and not to pledge themselves to
Captain Streatham, for that another candidate
in the same interest would be amongst them in
a very few days.

"An enemy hath done this thing," was Mr.
Dane's remark when he arrived from London on
the Wednesday evening, after remaining in
London long enough, to convince himself that
the telegram was a hoax, and that his friend
Mr. Staines, of Tredbury-court, Fleet-street,
had never sent him any messages whatever.
The Independent issued "on Thursday an extra
sheet, stating that what its London
correspondent had said about the respected
candidate of their party was not true, and that
some intrigue had been carried out in order to
get the editor away from his post for a few
hours. But the mischief was already done.
Even in the columns of the Mercury the letter
would have been most damaging; but appearing
as it did in the organ of Captain Streatham's
own party, it was a mine sprung in their
own camp, which did far more injury than any
shot from their enemy could have effected. The
captain was frantic, and at first nothing would
persuade him that he was not the victim of a
conspiracy got up by Mr. Dane himself. This
idea he did not, however, long retain after he
had learnt that the old and trusted correspondent
of the Independent had gone abroad, and
that Mr. Dane had been induced to leave his
post the very first day that the new correspondent's
letter was received at Northenville.

But another shot was in store for the
supporters of Captain Streatham and his party.
Their own paper, the Independent, with its
damaging letter respecting their candidate,
appeared on the Wednesday, and the following
Saturday our paper, the Mercury, was published.
The London correspondent of that paper was
looked upon as an amusing writer, and as
one who was particularly well informed on all
social anecdotes and scandals connected with
fashionable life in the metropolis. Of course,
the first thing everybody did when they received
the Mercury on the day I speak of was to turn
and see whether its correspondent said
anything about the great scandal of the day, at
least so far as Northenville was concerned;
and there was a paragraph on the subject, which
although short, was cleverly put together with
a view of injuring the enemy.

"I have been very much astonished at a letter
which has appeared in your contemporary, respecting
an honourable captain, who seeks to misrepresent