e had talked
for an hour longer. At length my turn came.

"Electors of Dreepdaily!"--

That was the whole of my speech, at least the whole of it that was audible
to any one human being. Humboldt, if I recollect right, talks in one of
his travels of having somewhere encountered a mountain composed of
millions of entangled snakes, whose hissing might have equalled that of
the transformed legions of Pandemonium. I wish Humboldt, for the sake of
scientific comparison, could have been upon the hustings that day! Certain
I am, that the sibilation did not leave my ears for a fortnight
afterwards, and even now, in my slumbers, I am haunted by a wilderness of
asps! However, at the urgent entreaty of M'Corkindale, I went on for about
ten minutes, though I was quivering in every limb, and as pale as a ghost;
and in order that the public might not lose the benefit of my sentiments,
I concluded by handing a copy of my speech, interlarded with fictitious
cheers, to the reporter for the Dreepdaily Patriot. That document may
still be seen by the curious in the columns of that impartial newspaper.

I will state this for Sholto Douglas, that he behaved like a perfect
gentleman. There was in his speech no triumph over the discomfiture which
the other candidates had received; on the contrary, he rather rebuked the
audience for not having listened to us with greater patience. He then went
on with his oration. I need hardly say it was a national one, and it was
most enthusiastically cheered.

All that I need mention about the show of hands is, that it was not by any
means hollow in my favour.

That afternoon we were not quite so lively in the Committee-room as usual.
The serenity of Messrs Gills, M'Auslan, and Shanks,--and, perhaps, I may
add of myself--was a good deal shaken by the intelligence that a broadside
with the tempting title of "_Full and Particular Account of an interview
between the Clique and Mr Dunshunner, held at Nanse Finlayson's Tavern, on
Friday last, and how they came to terms. By an Eyewitness_," was
circulating like wildfire through the streets. To have been beaten by a
Douglas was nothing, but to have been so artfully entrapped by a bauldy!

Provost Binkie, too, was dull and dissatisfied. The reception he had met
with in his native town was no doubt a severe mortification, but the
feeling that he had been used as a catspaw and implement of the Clique,
was, I suspected, uppermost in his mind. Poor man! We had great