rly
strenuous plodder, and Mrs. Durmot had been reasonably near the mark in
asserting that he was working at high pressure over this election. The
restful lull which his hostess enforced on him was decidedly welcome, and
yet the nervous excitement of the contest had too great a hold on him to
be totally banished.

"I know he's going to sit up half the night working up points for his
final speeches," said Mrs. Durmot regretfully; "however, we've kept
politics at arm's length all the afternoon and evening. More than that
we cannot do."

"That remains to be seen," said Vera, but she said it to herself.

Latimer had scarcely shut his bedroom door before he was immersed in a
sheaf of notes and pamphlets, while a fountain-pen and pocket-book were
brought into play for the due marshalling of useful facts and discreet
fictions. He had been at work for perhaps thirty-five minutes, and the
house was seemingly consecrated to the healthy slumber of country life,
when a stifled squealing and scuffling in the passage was followed by a
loud tap at his door. Before he had time to answer, a much-encumbered
Vera burst into the room with the question; "I say, can I leave these
here?"

"These" were a small black pig and a lusty specimen of black-red
gamecock.

Latimer was moderately fond of animals, and particularly interested in
small livestock rearing from the economic point of view; in fact, one of
the pamphlets on which he was at that moment engaged warmly advocated the
further development of the pig and poultry industry in our rural
districts; but he was pardonably unwilling to share even a commodious
bedroom with samples of henroost and stye products.

"Wouldn't they be happier somewhere outside?" he asked, tactfully
expressing his own preference in the matter in an apparent solicitude for
theirs.

"There is no outside," said Vera impressively, "nothing but a waste of
dark, swirling waters. The reservoir at Brinkley has burst."

"I didn't know there was a reservoir at Brinkley," said Latimer.

"Well, there isn't now, it's jolly well all over the place, and as we
stand particularly low we're the centre of an inland sea just at present.
You see the river has overflowed its banks as well."

"Good gracious! Have any lives been lost?"

"Heaps, I should say. The second housemaid has already identified three
bodies that have floated past the billiard-room window as being the young
man she's engaged to. Either she's eng