ssing the most extreme disgust that
any such charge should have been made without foundation,--although
he himself at the borough which he had last left had brought forward
the same charge on behalf of his then clients, and had abandoned it
in the same way. Then the whole of the remaining hours of the Tuesday
and half the Wednesday were passed in showing that Messrs. Spicer,
Spiveycomb, and Roodylands had forced their own men to vote blue. Mr.
Spicer had dismissed one man and Mr. Spiveycomb two men; but both
these gentlemen swore that the men dismissed were not worth their
salt, and had been sent adrift upon the world by no means on account
of their politics. True: they had all voted for Moggs; but then they
had done that simply to spite their late master. On the middle of
Wednesday, when the matter of intimidation had been completed,--the
result still lying in the bosom of Baron Crumbie,--Mr. Trigger
thought that things were looking up. That was the report which he
brought to Mr. Griffenbottom, who was smoking his midday cigar in
Sir Thomas's arm-chair, while Sir Thomas was endeavouring to master
the first book of Lord Verulam's later treatise "De dignitate
scientiarum," seated in a cane-bottomed chair in a very small
bed-room up-stairs.

By consent the question of treating came next. Heaven and earth were
being moved to find Glump. When the proposition was made that the
treating should come before the bribery Trigger stated in court that
he was himself doing his very best to find the man. There might yet
be a hope, though, alas, the hope was becoming slighter every hour.
His own idea was that Glump had been sent away to Holland by,--well,
he did not care to name the parties by whom he believed that Glump
had been expatriated. However, there might be a chance. The counsel
on the other side remarked that there might, indeed, be a chance.
Baron Crumbie expressed a hope that Mr. Glump might make his
appearance,--for the sake of the borough, which might otherwise fare
badly; and then the great beer question was discussed for two entire
days.

There was no doubt about the beer. Trigger, who was examined after
some half-score of publicans, said openly that thirsty Conservative
souls had been allowed to slake their drought at the joint expense
of the Conservative party in the borough,--as thirsty Liberal souls
had been encouraged to do on the other side. When reminded that any
malpractice in that direction on the part of a