and a
political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with
him--not at him--has gone far on the road to success.

Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an
unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting
beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the
paper, written large for me to read, said--_Compare Stridge to the Old
Lady of Dippleton_. What the lady had done I did not know, neither had I
time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and, after pausing
for a brief drink of water, concluded my sentence--

"--and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating such a
policy as that which he has had the--the--yes, the _effrontery_ to lay
before a clear-thinking and broad-minded Stoneleigh audience last night,
has shown himself to be no wiser in his generation, no better or more
statesmanlike in character, than--than--what shall we say? than"--I
glanced at the paper on the table--"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"

There was a great roar of laughter, and I sat down. I was ultimately
awarded a vote of thanks, which should by rights have been given to the
heroine of my closing allusion. I may mention here that no subsequent
inquiry of mine ever elicited from Robin or any one else what the Old
Lady of Dippleton _had_ done. Probably it was one of those things that
no real lady ever ought to do, and I discreetly left it at that.

Dolly, too, proved a treasure. Her strong line was canvassing. She could
ingratiate herself with short-tempered and over-driven wives apparently
without effort; surly husbands melted before her smile; sheepish young
men forgot the encumbering existence of their hands and feet in her
presence; and she was absolutely infallible with babies. Her methods
were entirely her own, and gratifyingly free from the superior and
patronising airs usually adopted by fine ladies when they go to solicit
the votes of that variegated and much-graded community which they
cheerfully and indiscriminately sum up as "the lower classes."

Let us follow her as she flits on her way to pay a morning call upon Mr
Noah Gulching of Jackson's Row.

Mr Gulching, she finds, is absent in search of a job, while Mrs
Gulching, thoroughly cross and worried, is doing the housework with one
hand and dangling a fractious teething baby from the other. The rest of
the family are engaged in playing games of skill and chance (on the win,
tie, or wrangl