body of parish senators, who were to
decide our fate. Some of us collected in
little conversational groups, discussing our
different prospects, showing each other the
rough drafts of the applications we had sent
in, and indulging generally in a good deal
of weak, verbal criticism.

Suddenly, our consultations were
interrupted by the loud voice of a porter from
the vestry-hall door, calling the name of
"Bates." This was the first applicant called
in—an ordinary looking lad, who had kept
aloof from the rest of the company. As soon
as he had gone in to be examined, a short
young man who stood next to me, whose
name I forget, but whom, because of his
sharp nose and quick restless eyes, I shall
call the Weasel, hastily examined a paper
that he held in his hand, and then said
reflectively.

"Oh!—oh! Master Bates—I smell a rat!"

I, of course, asked him what supposed
discovery had led to this observation.

"Well," said he, "look here. Isn't a man
named Bates the chairman of the vestry?
Isn't a man named Bates the vestry clerk?
Isn't a man named Bates the relieving officer?
And are there not several men of the name
of Bates upon the vestry?"

I was compelled, looking over the parochial
list, to reply in the affirmative.

"Yes," he returned, "and young Bates is
safe for the post, mark my words!"

We were called in, one by one, before the
vestry: about fifty men, chiefly shopkeepers,
sitting at a board covered with green baize
and writing materials. Our applications
were read, and a few questions put to us,
having answered which we were suffered to
withdraw.

After a few hours consumed in this way,
we had all been examined in our turn, and it
was announced to us that three candidates
had been selected, from whom one would be
elected to fill the post, at one o'clock precisely,
on that day fortnight. The names were
Bates, the Weasel, and myself.

"I told you so!" said the Weasel, "I can
see it all. I shall come on the day appointed,
to see the end of the job; but I shan't take
any trouble about it, whatever."

So spake the Weasel, and if I had had faith
in his words I might have saved myself a deal
of unnecessary, unproductive labour. But I
was young, fresh, and trusting; and,
perhaps, a trifle suspicious that my sharp little
friend intended to make herculean efforts, for
all his assumed indifference. In an evil
moment I procured a list of the vestrymen—
with their names and addresses—and went
home to arrange an energetic and methodical
canvas.

I wrote upwards of three hundred letters;
all after a form that I had prepared; and,
when I had finished them, I started with a
thick pair of boots and a good umbrella to
take them round; leaving them where I could
not see the persons required, and obtaining
an interview where it was possible.

I canvassed for ten days in the most active
and persevering manner. I saw butchers and
butchers' wives in little boxes at the end of
greasy shops, both in the calm and soapsuds
of an afternoon, and in the hurry and bustle
of a killing morning, when infuriated bulls
were tearing up the backyard, and heavy
sheep were running headlong between people's
legs. I saw grocers in large busy shops, and
introduced my business, as well as I could,
amidst the grinding clatter of steam-coffee
mills in full operation. I saw bakers on the
subject, who came up unwillingly in the cold
out of warm bake-houses, with their shirt-
sleeves tucked-up, their naked feet in loose
slippers, and looking as white as the Pierrot in
a pantomime. I went into tallow-chandlers'
shops, enduring the combined smell of oil,
candles, paint, size, and soap, to obtain an
interview with one of the men in power. I went
into large upholsterers' warehouses, and after
toiling up-stairs and down, in garrets and
cellars, and along rooms filled with furniture
that I could scarcely thread my way through,
found a clerk in authority at last, stuck in a
small counting-house, amidst a forest of
bedsteads, who kindly informed me that his
master was in Paris, and not expected home
for six weeks.

Some shops that I went to were in the
charge of dirty boys, who, the moment I
entered, rang a bell, bringing down the
proprietor in the middle of his dinner from
an upper story, who did not always receive me
very politely, and who cursed the official position
that exposed him to such interruptions
at such a period of the day. Sometimes, it
was a public-house that required a visit, and
the landlord was brought out of the cellar in
the midst of fining or adulterating the beer,
to listen to my views uttered across the
sponge-cakes on the counter inside the bottle-
entrance. Sometimes it was a livery-stable
keeper; and, if he happened not to be in
the very neat clean house at the entrance to
the yard, I had to seek him amongst plunging
horses, and whizzing ostlers.

Then, at private houses, I saw, or tried to
see, doctors, lawyers, clergymen, and retired
gentlemen; some, I caught just as they were
going out in the morning, and took a hurried
interview upon the doorstep: some, I found
at the moment they were coming home
hungry to dinner, in no mood to be trifled
with by any man, much less by me. In some
instances I had long periods of waiting for an
interview, in dingy parlours, looking at a piano,
an ornamental book upon a round table, and
two awful portraits in oil of the master and
mistress of the house. Sometimes, I passed
about the same period of time in a luxurious
dining-room, the brilliant carpet of which, to
my horror, bore two muddy footprints of my
own boots.

Once, I was an unwilling auditor of a little