the pony which the man
wants to sell out in the yard."

"She's quite right, Fletcher," said the squire. "I'm much more likely
to be able to buy them ponies as simple Frank Gresham than I should
be if I had a lord's coronet to pay for."

This was on a Saturday, and on the following Monday Mr. Gresham
drove the candidate over to Silverbridge and started him on his work
of canvassing. Mr. Du Boung had been busy ever since Mr. Sprout's
brilliant suggestion had been made, and Lopez had been in the field
even before him. Each one of the candidates called at the house of
every elector in the borough,--and every man in the borough was
an elector. When they had been at work for four or five days each
candidate assured the borough that he had already received promises
of votes sufficient to insure his success, and each candidate was
as anxious as ever,--nay, was more rabidly anxious than ever,--to
secure the promise of a single vote. Hints were made by honest
citizens of the pleasure they would have in supporting this or that
gentleman,--for the honest citizens assured one gentleman after the
other of the satisfaction they had in seeing so all-sufficient a
candidate in the borough,--if the smallest pecuniary help were given
them, even a day's pay, so that their poor children might not be
injured by their going to the poll. But the candidates and their
agents were stern in their replies to such temptations. "That's a
dodge of that rascal Sprout," said Sprugeon to Mr. Lopez. "That's one
of Sprout's men. If he could get half-a-crown from you it would be
all up with us." But though Sprugeon called Sprout a rascal, he laid
the same bait both for Du Boung and for Fletcher;--but laid it in
vain. Everybody said that it was a very clean election. "A brewer
standing, and devil a glass of beer!" said one old elector who had
remembered better things when the borough never heard of a contest.

On the third day of his canvass Arthur Fletcher with his gang of
agents and followers behind him met Lopez with his gang in the
street. It was probable that they would so meet, and Fletcher had
resolved what he would do when such a meeting took place. He walked
up to Lopez, and with a kindly smile offered his hand. The two men,
though they had never been intimate, had known each other, and
Fletcher was determined to show that he would not quarrel with a man
because that man had been his favoured rival. In comparison with that
other matter this affai