itain is quite sure she's ready to do business on preference lines
it's the Liberal party on this side she'll have to talk to. No use
showing ourselves too anxious, you know. Besides, it might do harm over
there. We're all right; we're on record. Wallingham knows as well as we
do the lines we're open on--he's heard them from Canadian Liberals more
than once. When they get good and ready they can let us know."

"Jolly them up with it at your meetings by all means," advised Bingham,
"but use it as a kind of superfluous taffy; don't make it your main
lay-out."

The Reform Association of South Fox had no more energetic officer than
Bingham, though as he sat on the edge of the editorial table chewing
portions of the margin of that afternoon's Express, and drawling out
maxims to the Liberal candidate, you might not have thought so. He was
explaining that he had been in this business for years, and had never
had a job that gave him so much trouble.

"We'll win out," he said, "but the canvass isn't any Christmas joy--not
this time. There's Jim Whelan," he told them. "We all know what Jim
is--a Tory from way back, where they make 'em so they last, and a soaker
from way back, too; one day on his job and two days sleepin' off his
whiskey. Now we don't need Jim Whelan's vote, never did need it, but
the boys have generally been able to see that one of those two days was
election day. There's no necessity for Jim's putting in his paper--a
character like that--no necessity at all--he'd much better be
comfortable in bed. This time, I'm darned if the old boozer hasn't sworn
off! Tells the boys he's on to their game, and there's no liquor in this
town that's good enough to get him to lose his vote--wouldn't get drunk
on champagne. He's held out for ten days already, and it looks like
Winter'd take his cross all right on Thursday."

"I guess I'd let him have it, Bingham," said Lorne Murchison with a kind
of tolerant deprecation, void of offence, the only manner in which
he knew how to convey disapproval to the older man. "The boys in your
division are a pretty tough lot, anyhow. We don't want the other side
getting hold of any monkey tricks."

"It's necessary to win this election, young man," said Bingham,
"lawfully. You won't have any trouble with my bunch."

It was not, as will be imagined, the first discussion, so late in
the day, of the value of the preference trade argument to the Liberal
campaign. They had all realized, after