vexatious measure, which must be repealed, Mr. Crowe, before the discontent grows to a dangerous head."

"Am I to say nothing on home or foreign politics?" asked Bindon petulantly, for he could talk endlessly on either subject and on either side of either.

"I should fill in with them, Mr. Crowe, for the newspapers. But the main questions are those I have mentioned-and trade. Trade has been very bad; harvests have been bad for years, very bad. You must make the most of that, Mr. Crowe."

"We must change all that," said Bindon laughing. "What would you suggest, Mr. Coates? Bring in a ten hours' bill for the sun, eh?"

"My dear sir, you must show that the sun had nothing to do with it, or if it had, that the sun is on the Liberal side. The stars in their courses,' you know. You must point out to them that the years of famine are always the years of Tory rule, and the years of plenty the years of Liberal rule. You must bring in the Corn Laws and Free Trade, and so on. But the things of real interest and importance to the people at large are Compulsory Vaccination, the Buzzers, the Burials Bill, Flogging in the Services, Local Option, and bad trade. Stick to them, and the thing is done."

"But how about the publicans?"

"We must take every important public-house for our committees, my dear sir, and you must explain to each how greatly he will benefit by Local Option."

"Benefit!"

"To be sure. If his house is shut up, he must receive four times its value for compulsory expropriation; if it is not shut up, he gets all the custom of his neighbour's house, which is."

"he

But,"

"So he does, by Jove!" exclaimed Bindon, delighted at the prospect of hauling in publicans and teetotallers in the same net. suggested after a short pause, "there are the Home Rulers. awkward customers to meddle with, one way or another."

They are

"Not they, my dear sir. If you call it 'home rule' we shall lose two votes for every one we gain: but call it 'Justice to Ireland,' which means just as much or as little, and we have the Irish without losing the English vote. What the Liberal party want, Mr. Crowe, at this crisis, is a man who will divide them least, and to do that you must be vague. Give them a blank cheque, you know, Retrenchment, Reform, Religious Equality, Justice to Ireland; a great word, like a great-coat, will fit anyone."

quoted Bindon.

"John Gilpin

"My head is twice as big as yours,

They therefore needs must fit,"

Ay, and he dropped them on the road-for why? they were too big," responded Mr. Coates, looking slily and suggestively at his client, "What a good many of you gentlemen do on the road to

St. Stephen's, Mr. Crowe, drop your pledges-for why they were too big-ha, ha, ha!" with a laugh which would have revolted a righteous Radical, but in which, we regret to say, Mr. Bindon Crowe joined. Mr. Coates, thus encouraged, continued his sage instructions.

"There's another cue we might take from our Liberal leaders, Mr. Crowe. It's not only a good thing to have pledges wide enough to fit anyone, but it's not a bad thing to have two sets of pledges, one set for the Radical and another set for the Whig. I don't mean of course-of course not-that you should promise one thing to a Whig and another thing to a Radical, but that you should put your pledges differently— give them neat to the Radical, and water them down a bit for the Whig. A great deal depends upon the light you put things in, my dear sir; what looks blue by daylight, looks green by candle-light, and the same political colour looks different in different lights. There are our leaders, for instance, Mr. G and Lord H. There are not two honester men in England, I should say-not in England. Yet you see, while Lord H—— roars as gently as any sucking dove for the stalls, Mr. G- roars till it would do any man's heart good to hear him for the gallery."

"Ay, begad, they're like Face and Subtle in the Alchemist," chuckled Bindon, whose political leanings, such as they were, inclined to Conservatism. Mr. Coates knew not the Alchemist.

“Well, my dear sir, in choosing canvassers we must take a leaf out of their book, and employ Home Rulers for the Irish, Whigs for men of position and education, and Radicals for the Dissenters and proletariat. Then your views will get to be thoroughly interpreted, thoroughly interpreted, my dear sir."

Now it was to this piece of golden counsel that Bob was indebted for his political employment, Mr. Bindon Crowe, on the day of his receiving it, came upon Bob in the coffee room of the "Queen," to his amazement.

"Bob Sagar!"

"Bindon!"

"What wind has blown you here of all places?" asked Bindon, with a moment's misgiving that Bob had come upon the same errand as himself.

"I came to see a friend, and I've found two, my boy. And what's brought you here of all places?"

"I came to woo, Bob."

"To woo? Have you seen Dick Burkitt lately, Bindon ?" Bob asked solemnly.

"Faith, then, Bindon, I'd go see him if I were you before I committed myself," said Bob, with a nod.

"What! Is Dick married? Poor devil! he was always unlucky. Do you remember his falling into Bastable's clutches?"

"Ay, begad, and his being pulled up by old McClintock. He had

a squeak for it then, but he's run in now, and no mistake. He goes about in the clubs like a scarecrow, and frightens all the fellows out of the noose. You go and see him, my boy; take my advice."

"Too late, Bob."

"You're engaged?"

"I'm married, old boy, and a father. I've a stake in the country now, Bob, and I must look after its interests. It's the constituency I've come to woo and to win. Member for Wefton, Solicitor-General, Attorney-General, Lord High Chancellor of England!"

Bob listened breathless to this modest programme.

"You'll do it, too!" he cried, with extorted admiration, given rather to the brass than the brains of his old school, college, and Indian chum.

"Of course I'll do it, with your help, my boy. I remember how you used to fire away at the Historical." And indeed, Bob, in those old Dublin days, had been "the Rupert of debate," first in the Philosophical, and afterwards in the Historical Society, answering to the Union in Oxford and Cambridge. In those dim days of old he far outshone the sucking Lord Chancellor who had since far outstripped him. "Ah, that tap's run out, Bindon, long ago," sighed Bob.

"Not it. You're like an old pump; you only want priming to spout as well as ever. And it's the old liquor too, my boy, Kinahan's LL Genuine Irish Whisky. Home Rule-Ireland for the Irish—' Who fears to speak of '98?' Only we must let it down a bit for English consumption."

Why, you used to be an Orangeman, and pitch into me as a snake that stung the bosom of my Alma Mater in which I was warmed, and invoke another St. Patrick to banish such pestilent vermin from the country they cursed."

"I've learnt the error of my ways, Bob. Not too late, I hope," pleaded this exemplary penitent, who then proceeded to put his programme before Bob, not with Mr. Coates' cynical frankness, for Bob, among his other weaknesses, held fast by his political principles.

"We'll do it," cried Bob enthusiastically. "Of course we'll do it," reiterated Bindon.

CHAPTER XLIII.

BOB AS AN ORATOR.

WE are still some way off the reason for Mr. Sagar's most mysterious disappearance from Wefton, but we are making for it as fast as the importance of the matter will permit us. Corporal Trim could not have been more eager to tell the story of "the King of Bohemia and his Seven Castles." Besides, we have to fill the stage with a divertisement

of some kind while the carpenter is preparing the next scene. interval of a year takes some time to fill in.

The

This

By a lucky chance Tarbutt, who was to have opposed Josiah Pickles at the approaching election, gave offence to the Liberal caucus. caucus, composed of Dissenters, who were accustomed to choose their ministers by a competitive examination in preaching and to keep them up to the mark afterwards by a criticism which was frank to brutality, had stretched poor Tarbutt on the same bed of Procrustes. Tarbutt was not thin-skinned by any means, and stood all the heckling and hectoring without wincing, but could not succeed in satisfying the Tooley Street tailors. On the contrary he succeeded in giving offence to the most influential, that is, the most wealthy, of their number, a man named Jagger, a machine-maker, a self-made man, whose education just enabled him to write and spell his name correctly. Mr. Tarbutt, upon being brutally bullied at a meeting by Mr. Jagger, ventured in reply to object to "the pragmatical dogma of Mr. Jagger." Mr. Tarbutt, being halfeducated and of Scotch extraction, always used the very longest and hardest words at his command. Mr. Jagger jumped up and appealed to the chairman for protection, at least from "such blackguard language as that." Mr. Tarbutt mildly defended the words as innocent in themselves and innocently meant. The chairman, an oil and colour merchant, ruled that the words were no doubt very offensive, but that they had probably slipped from Mr. Tarbutt in the heat of debate. Mr. Tarbutt instead of apologising laughed, and the laugh exasperated Mr. Jagger to use language so outrageous as to rouse Mr. Tarbutt to a retort which cost him his candidature.

Thus the caucus, with the election close upon them, were at sea for a candidate. Local jealousies prevented the choice of one of their own number, and there was no time to look abroad for a suitable man. At this juncture Bindon Crowe turned up, a man of brains and "brass," not only in Bob Sagar's sense, but in the Yorkshire sense of the word. For Bindon had both made and married a fortune. Thus Bindon stepped at once into Mr. Tarbutt's shoes. He rather overdid his part, but that was a fault on the right side; the only difficulty the caucus had with him was to cool and control him. It was with extreme reluctance he could be dissuaded from going in for the Disestablishment and Disendowment of the Church, and reducing the Bishops to be doorkeepers in the House of Lords. This, the caucus considered, was not yet within the range of practical politics, and Bindon therefore had to bow to their decision with as good a grace as he could. For the rest, they approved of his principles, but suggested that he should moderate his expression of them, which indeed was a little too, too strong.

Thus Bindon's chances were good, and were bettered beyond all expectation by Bob. He was told off to secure the Irish vote, which was strong and solid, and was so successful not merely as a canvasser but as an orator, that his compatriots plumped like one man for his

friend. Bob carried them away with an eloquence which was after their own heart, fluent, fiery, and imaginative, full of daring illustrations and exaggerations and relieved by ready, racy, and rollicking bursts of humour. He painted piteous pictures of Ireland, describing her as not unlike the Hall of Eblis in Vathek, in herself glorious as the mind of man could conceive, with everything the eye loves to see, or the ear to hear, or the hand to handle, or the senses to enjoy, but there was no enjoyment. The unhappy inhabitants, like the doomed multitude in the Hall of Eblis, whose right hands hid hearts on fire for ever, were plunged in restless and ceaseless misery, which they had to hide, since their tyrants held it to be treason even to disclose it. Then Bob would paint the millennium which the return of his friend Bindon was to hasten, when the accursed Saxon would have to take his iron heel from Erin's neck, and the rapacious landlord would have to withdraw his griping hand from her pocket; when her daughters would once more smile like her lovely plains, and her sons again stand erect and strong as her towering hills; when plenty, like her rivers, would flow everywhere and for ever; when, to put all in one word, the tenant would own the land he tilled, and the landlord would have to till what little land he was allowed to own. (Frantic applause.) Bob's eloquence always got out of hand towards the end of a speech, and hurried him into the rankest and rottenest socialism.

There was, too, another contrast on which Bob was eloquent besides that between the Ireland of to-day and of to-morrow, the contrast between the two candidates, Mr. Bindon Crowe and Mr. Pickles. He described Mr. Crowe's brilliant university career (Mr. Crowe had carried off one prize, that for putting the weight at the university athletic sports), and the rich rewards which Ireland, England, and the three learned professions had held out to him if he would stay at home. But no; Mr. Crowe's heart had been stirred to its depths by the tales of Saxon oppression brought by every mail from that Ireland of the East-India. Thither he would go and devote the best years of his life in a foreign and far-off land, and in a deadly climate, to the defence of those defenceless and down-trodden millions-aliens to him in race, in creed, in colour, bound to him only by the bond of a common oppression and a common oppressor. It is true that Mr. Crowe had come back from India. Was it merely because his health was shattered in that cruel climate, and his energies impaired by an unequal struggle of twenty years with bayonet-backed tyranny? No; though those twenty years had left their mark upon his body, had silvered his hair, bowed his frame, brought down his strength in his journey, and shortened his days, his spirit they could not blanch, or bow, or break; it was still what it was and where it was, foot to foot with the foe; and he came back to England to give him battle in a better field, to stem the torrent of these terrible abuses, not at their mouth in India, but at their source in the British House of Commons. He came back to plead the common