that he cared in his heart one farthing about
the representation--Tyrian and Trojan were in reality the same to him--but
he saw that the gain of these burghs would be of immense advantage to his
party, and he determined that the advantage should be balanced by a
corresponding profit to himself. Accordingly, he began quietly to look to
the state of the neglected register; lodged objections to all claims given
in by parties upon whom he could not depend; smuggled a sufficient number
of his own clients and adherents upon the roll, and in the course of three
years, was able to intimate to an eminent Whig partisan, that he, Laurence
Linklater, held in his own hands the representation of the Dreepdaily
Burghs, could turn the election either way he pleased, and was open to
reasonable terms.

The result was, that Mr Linklater was promoted to a very lucrative county
office, and moreover, that the whole patronage of the district was
thereafter observed to flow through the Laurentian channel. Of course all
those who could claim kith or kindred with Lowrie were provided for in the
first instance; but there were stray crumbs still going, and in no one
case could even a gaugership be obtained without the adhesion of an
additional vote. Either the applicant must be ready to sell his
independence, or, if that were done already, to pervert the politics of a
relative. A Whig member was returned at the next election by an immense
majority; and for some time Linklater reigned supreme in the government of
Dreepdaily and Drouthielaw.

But death, which spares no governors, knocked at the door of Linklater. A
surfeit of partan-pie, after the triumphant termination of a law-suit,
threw the burghs into a state of anarchy. Lowrie was gathered unto his
fathers, and there was no one to reign in his stead.

At least there was no apparent ruler. Every one observed, that the stream
of patronage and of local jobbing still flowed on as copiously as before,
but nobody could discover by what hands it was now directed. Suspicion
fastened its eyes for some time upon Provost Binkie; but the vehement
denials of that gentleman, though not in themselves conclusive, at last
gained credence from the fact that a situation which he had solicited from
Government for his nephew was given to another person. Awful rumours began
to circulate of the existence of a secret junta. Each man regarded his
neighbour with intense suspicion and distrust, because, for any thing h