telephone?" (To the crowd.) "Don't push in and scratch the paint.
He's going to back out in a minute, and somebody'll get hurt."

Mr. Hamilton Tooting (Colonel Hamilton Tooting that is to be--it being
an open secret that he is destined for the staff) is standing hatless
on the sidewalk ready to receive the great man. The crowd in the rotunda
makes a lane, and Mr. Crewe, glancing neither to the right nor left,
walks upstairs; and scarce is he installed in the bridal suite,
surrounded by his faithful workers for reform, than that amazing
reception begins. Mr. Hamilton Tooting, looking the very soul of
hospitality, stands by the doorway with an open box of cigars in his
left hand, pressing them upon the visitors with his right. Reform,
contrary to the preconceived opinion of many, is not made of icicles,
nor answers with a stone a request for bread. As the hours run on,
the visitors grow more and more numerous, and after supper the room
is packed to suffocation, and a long line is waiting in the corridor,
marshalled and kept in good humour by able lieutenants; while Mr.
Crewe is dimly to be perceived through clouds of incense burning in his
honour--and incidentally at his expense--with a welcoming smile and an
appropriate word for each caller, whose waistcoat pockets, when they
emerge, resemble cartridge-belts of cigars.

More cigars were hastily sent for, and more. There are to be but a
thousand delegates to the convention, and at least two thousand men have
already passed through the room--and those who don't smoke have friends.
It is well that Mr. Crewe has stuck to his conservative habit of not
squeezing hands too hard.

"Isn't that Mr. Putter, who keeps a livery-stable here?" inquired Mr.
Crewe, about nine o'clock--our candidate having a piercing eye of his
own. Mr. Putter's coat, being brushed back, has revealed six cigars.

"Why, yes--yes," says Mr. Watling.

"Is he a delegate?" Mr. Crewe demanded.

"Why, I guess he must be," says Mr. Watling.

But Mr. Putter is not a delegate.

"You've stood up and made a grand fight, Mr. Crewe," says another
gentleman, a little later, with a bland, smooth shaven face and strong
teeth to clinch Mr. Crewe's cigars. "I wish I was fixed so as I could
vote for you."

Mr. Crewe looks at him narrowly.

"You look very much like a travelling man from New York, who tried to
sell me farm machinery," he answers.

"Where are you from?"

"You ain't exactly what they call a tyro,