he labour of stumping an electorate and
bellowing himself hoarse for all the chance he had of being returned.

We turned out _en masse_ from Clay's to hear the second speech of
young Walker, assisted by two M.P.'s belonging to his party. Grandma
and I drove in the sulky, while the girls and Andrew walked ahead, the
latter under strict orders to behave with reason, and not make "a fool
of hisself with the larrakins."

It was well we arrived early, as there was not sitting room for half
the audience, though more than half the hall being reserved for the
ladies, we got a front seat, and long before the time for the speakers
to appear every corner was packed, and women as well as men were
standing in rows fronting the stage. A great buzz of conversation at
the front, and stampeding and cat-calling among the youths at the
back, was terminated by the arrival of the three speakers of the
evening, who were received amid deafening cock-a-doodling, cheering,
stamping, and clapping. An old warrior of the class dressed _up_ to
the position of M.P. sat to one side, and next him was the barrister
type so prolific in parliament, who had himself dressed _down_ to the
vulgar crowd, while third sat Leslie Walker.

Surely not the first Leslie Walker who had appeared a week or two
previously! His bright, restless eye, though too sensitive for that of
an old campaigner, now took in the crowd with complete assurance, and
there was no hint of hesitation discernible. Having once smelt powder
he was ready for the fray.

"By Jove! hasn't Les. bucked up!" whispered Ernest, who sat on one
side of me, where he had landed after an ineffectual attempt to sit
beside Dawn.

"Yes; if he can only roar and blow and wave his arms sufficiently he
may have a chance."

"But he's still nervous," said the observant Andrew from the rear.
"You watch him go for that flea in the leg of his pants!"

Sitting in full view of a "chyacking" audience is a severe ordeal to
an inexperienced campaigner with a sensitive temperament, and this
action, indeed peculiarly like an attempt to detain an annoying insect
in a fold of his lower garment, was one of those little mannerisms
adopted to give an appearance of ease.

Behind the speakers came, as chairman, one of the swell class almost
extinct in this region, and he, too, had rather an effete attitude and
physique, as he took up his position behind the spindley table
weighted by the smeared tumblers and water-bottle.