sequently my
esteemed caller was now wanted by the police.

The catastrophe of the pie, he explained, was in no way to be attributed
to the love-philtre (which was composed of sifted sugar and cinnamon),
but was due to the fact that instead of the philtre he had inadvertently
handed his fair client a packet out of the next drawer, which contained
ready-made-up doses of tartaric acid for immediate use in the case of
small boys who had swallowed sixpences. _Hinc lacrymcoe_. In spite of
his complete consciousness of his own innocence, he now found himself
compelled in a few days' time to defend his conduct in a court of law.
The proceedings would cost money, of which he of course possessed little
or none. He had called, he said, confident in the hope that I would
assist him to defray the expense of vindicating his integrity as a
high-class Herbalist by purchasing six bottles of his world-renowned
specific for neuralgia, from which dread malady he had been
informed--quite incorrectly, by the way--that I occasionally suffered.
The thirty shillings thus subscribed, together with a few odd coins
which he himself had contrived to scrape together during a long life of
thrift, would secure the services of a skilled advocate, who would
doubtless be able to prove to the satisfaction of justice that no
high-class Herbalist would ever dream, save in the way of kindness, of
putting tartaric acid into a policeman's beefsteak pudding.

He added, rather inconsequently, that he had voted Conservative at the
last three elections, and had moreover persuaded all the other members
of the Royal and Ancient Brotherhood of High-class Herbalists to do the
same. (One pound ten.)

My last visitor was a seedy individual in corduroys, who asked for a
private interview with the Candidate, and, on this favour being granted,
informed me in a confidential and husky whisper that he knew of ten good
men and true, fully qualified voters, who were prepared to go to the
poll on my behalf for the trifling fee of two pound ten a-head and no
questions asked. He was politely but firmly shown into the street. One
has to be on the look-out against persons of this type.

I concluded the afternoon by a rather unsatisfactory interview with Mr
Cash. He was by nature a boisterous and optimistic person, but on this
occasion I found him inclined to be reticent and gloomy. He announced
with a shake of the head that my rival was a very strong candidate; and
finally, aft