eeper
brought chairs, without any one's asking him; somebody else brought a
brasier for the clerks; everybody was anxious to do something. The stock
phrase, an electoral battle, was not for them a political commonplace
but a reality. The most trivial things served as a motive for very
long discussions. Such was their identification with the Idea, that
it succeeded in wiping out selfish ends. They all felt honoured and
enthusiastic, at least while it lasted.

People dreamed of the election.

When Caesar arrived at the electoral headquarters, it was always a
series of exclamations, of embracing, of advice, that never ended.

"Don Caesar, such a thing is... Don Caesar, don't trust So-and-So."

"We must get rid of them."

"Not one of them ought to be left."

He used to smile, because finding himself really loved by the people had
cleansed him of his habitual bitterness and his loss of spirits. When he
had finished receiving recommendations and congratulations, he would
go to an inside room, and there, in the company of a candidate or a
secretary, would read letters and arrange what they had to do.

The most active of the candidates was Dr. Ortigosa.

Ortigosa was a narrow-minded, tenacious man. His chief hatred was for
Catholicism and he directed all his attacks at the religion of his
forefathers, as he ironically termed it.

He had founded a Masonic lodge, named the "Microbe," and whose principal
characteristic was anti-Catholicism.

Ortigosa carried his propaganda everywhere. He stopped at every corner
to speechify, to talk of his plans.

Caesar used his motor-car to go about among the villages in the
district. They would go to four or five and talk from balconies, or very
often from the car, like itinerant patent-medicine venders.

In the little villages these reunions produced a great effect. What was
said served as a topic of conversation for a month.

Caesar had developed a clear, insinuating eloquence. He knew how to
explain things admirably. Padilla's followers were not asleep; but, as
was natural, they took up the work in another way. They went from shop
to shop, making the shopkeepers see the harmfulness of the Moncadist
politics, promising them advantages. They threatened workmen with
dismissal. There was no great enthusiasm; their campaign was less noisy,
but, in part more certain.

All the Liberal element of Castro was wrought up, from the temperate
Liberals, who remembered Espartero, to the An