the rank and file of a school procession.
Those children were classed together who
were of an equal height, without regard to
affections or antipathies, and they dared not
ask to be re-marshalled, even on a holiday,
for fear of their lives. On they slouched, in
their ill–made uniform; with dull, heavy
eyes; with pale, puffed cheeks and drooping
jaws; with the regulation orange in one
hand, and the regulation bun in the other;
and with looks that showed no enjoyment of
the present, and no hope of the future.

Sir Tomahawk in due time, after the proper
forms and ceremonies of an election, which
was not contested, had been gone through,
was declared duly elected. His coadjutor
for the town and borough had paired off
with another invalid ten years ago; since
which time, although he waa supposed to be
taking the waters at a German bath, he had
never been heard of, and Sir Tomahawk had
therefore the dignity and advantages of his
new position all to himself. This state of
things did not last for many months; for
intelligence came at last of the death of the
old member at some place abroad with a
name containing many vowels, all dotted
over the top, and which none of the Fogmoor
people could pronounce. After a while, they
awoke to a sense of the necessity and probable
profit of another election. The preliminary
steps were accordingly taken to secure the
support of those Fogmoor colours which Sir
Tomahawk had already nailed to the mast.

Sir Tomahawk also awoke to a sense of the
necessity of bringing in a member who would
not interfere with the designs that he himself
had carefully laid for his own political advancement.
Sir Tomahawk cast his eye over the
political horizon, and was very well satisfied
with the prospect. He knew, or thought he
knew, exactly what he could do with his
borough, and what he could not. He thought
that, for a certain sum, he could secure the
return of a gentleman of the scientific-tourist
school, whose time would be chiefly divided
between botany in the Himalayas, ethnology
in Central America, and meteorology in the
Arctic regions. If he hesitated for a moment,
it was because he feared that such a
travelled Thane might interfere with his
prospect, however remote, of one day being
appointed to the Colonial Office. But,
as he saw how fruitless it was to indulge
in the hope of ever getting another member
like the late shadowy legislator, he selected
the tourist (whose name was Mr. Kosmus)
as the safest person to stand. Having first
ascertained that Mr. Kosmus, was at a part
of the globe where he could be reached by
telegraphic communication, he applied to
him in that form; and, finding him not unwilling
to be nominated, he signed a guarantee
for that gentleman's political faith to the
Woolsack Club, and received the amount that
he asserted would be sufficient to secure the
election.

Sir Tomahawk considered that he had
taken quiet and effectual possession of the
field, and expected to carry his point without
a contest. But Sir Tomahawk was
doomed to be disappointed. Sir Tomahawk
made a mistake in attempting to do too
much himself, without either counsel or
assistance. It is true that by this means
privacy was ensured, as well as a large
degree of profit; but success in an undertaking
is the one thing needful, to which all other
things should be made subservient. It is
quite true that for a certain sum, Mr. Kosmus,
or any man in the world, or even out of it,
could have been returned for the borough of
Fogmore, provided no other man offered a
larger sum. Here lay the mistake. Moreover,
Sir Tomahawk's character was not one
of those which come out the stronger in the
face of opposition, and therefore I cannot
wonder at his mental collapse, when, after a
few days, by the side of his huge "Vote for
Kosmus" placards, was affixed a small, neat,
printed notice, requesting the electors to
support Mr. Snarlington.

When Sir Tomahawk had quite recovered
from his astonishment, the first question that
he asked, loudly, was, "Who is Mr. Snarlington?"
Who was Mr. Snarlington? Who
indeed! Certainly, fools and madmen would
never die out of the land. Sir Tomahawk
had no doubts: no misgivings. Why should
he have? He waited, with the calm dignity
of conscious strength, for the discomfiture of
his obscure and presumptuous enemy.

Mr. Snarlington's movements had been
prompt and characteristic. At ten o'clock,
A.M., he determined to stand for the borough;
at eleven o'clock, A.M., he was in a carriage at
the railway-station; at half-past three o'clock,
P.M., he was in a cab at the London terminus;
and at ten minutes to four, P.M., he was in
the offices of Messrs. Alabaster and Ermine,
the unequalled electioneering agents.

No matter what a man's business may be,
—thief-training or thief-catching;
chess-playing or billiard-playing; curing smoky
chimneys, or building Elizabethan villas;
making popular sausages, or popular pills;
filling out the walking skeleton with artificial
flesh; tightening in the panting mass of too,
too solid flesh, until its possessor is not only
presentable, but elegant, in the eyes of his
adorable Amelia; training bull-headed men for
prize-fights, or preparing young clergymen for
the polemical pulpit; breeding sleek terriers,
who will kill a hundred rats in about two-thirds
of the same number of seconds; useful
businesses, elegant businesses, criminal
businesses, improper businesses, mean, shabby,
and sly businesses; no matter what profession
a man may follow, if he be the first of his
kind, he exacts and receives a certain amount
of wonder and admiration, even from those
who will tell you that they despise both him
and his calling. It is right to be virtuous, it
is good to be honest, it is better to have the