the railway hero,
with the view of keeping out the de Courcy candidate. Then came the
shopkeepers, who might also be regarded as a stiff-necked generation,
impervious to electioneering eloquence. They would, generally,
support Mr Moffat. But there was an inferior class of voters,
ten-pound freeholders, and such like, who, at this period, were
somewhat given to have an opinion of their own, and over them it was
supposed that Sir Roger did obtain some power by his gift of talking.

"Now, gentlemen, will you tell me this," said he, bawling at the top
of his voice from off the portico which graced the door of the Dragon
of Wantley, at which celebrated inn Sir Roger's committee sat:--"Who
is Mr Moffat, and what has he done for us? There have been some
picture-makers about the town this week past. The Lord knows who
they are; I don't. These clever fellows do tell you who I am, and
what I've done. I ain't very proud of the way they've painted me,
though there's something about it I ain't ashamed of either. See
here," and he held up on one side of him one of the great daubs of
himself--"just hold it there till I can explain it," and he handed
the paper to one of his friends. "That's me," said Sir Roger, putting
up his stick, and pointing to the pimply-nosed representation of
himself.

"Hurrah! Hur-r-rah! more power to you--we all know who you are,
Roger. You're the boy! When did you get drunk last?" Such-like
greetings, together with a dead cat which was flung at him from the
crowd, and which he dexterously parried with his stick, were the
answers which he received to this exordium.

"Yes," said he, quite undismayed by this little missile which had
so nearly reached him: "that's me. And look here; this brown,
dirty-looking broad streak here is intended for a railway; and that
thing in my hand--not the right hand; I'll come to that presently--"

"How about the brandy, Roger?"

"I'll come to that presently. I'll tell you about the brandy in good
time. But that thing in my left hand is a spade. Now, I never handled
a spade, and never could; but, boys, I handled a chisel and mallet;
and many a hundred block of stone has come out smooth from under that
hand;" and Sir Roger lifted up his great broad palm wide open.

"So you did, Roger, and well we minds it."

"The meaning, however, of that spade is to show that I made the
railway. Now I'm very much obliged to those gentlemen over at the
White Horse for putting up this pictur