he candidate of the
opposite party.

That possibility had been promptly frustrated by a cross petition. There
was enough evidence in Subdivision Eleven, according to Bingham, to
void the Tory returns on six different counts; but the house-cat sold by
Peter Finnigan to Mr Winter for five dollars would answer all practical
purposes. It was a first-rate mouser, Bingham said, and it would settle
Winter. They would have plenty of other charges "good and ready" if
Finnigan's cat should fail them, but Bingham didn't think the court
would get to anything else; he had great confidence in the cat.

The petitions had been lodged with promptness. "Evidence," as Mr Winter
remarked, "is like a good many other things--better when it's hot,
especially the kind you get on the Reserve." To which, when he heard it,
Bingham observed sarcastically that the cat would keep. The necessary
thousand dollars were ready on each side the day after the election,
lodged in court the next. Counsel were as promptly engaged--the Liberals
selected Cruickshank--and the suit against the elected candidate,
beginning with charges against his agents in the town, was shortly in
full hearing before the judges sent from Toronto to try it. Meanwhile
the Elgin Mercury had shown enterprise in getting hold of Moneida
evidence, and foolhardiness, as the Express pointed out, in publishing
it before the matter was reached in court. There was no foolhardiness
in printing what the Express knew about Finnigan's cat; it was just
a common cat, and Walter Winter paid five dollars for it, Finnigan
declaring that if Mr Winter hadn't filled him up with bad whiskey before
the bargain, he wouldn't have let her go under ten, he was that fond
of the creature. The Express pointed out that this was grasping of
Finnigan, as the cat had never left him, and Mr Winter showed no
intention of taking her away; but there was nothing sub judice about the
cat. Finnigan, before he sobered up, had let her completely out of the
bag. It was otherwise with the charges that were to be made, according
to the Mercury, on the evidence of Chief Joseph Fry and another member
of his tribe, to the effect that he and his Conservative friends had
been instructed by Squire Ormiston and Mr Murchison to vote on this
occasion for both the candidates, thereby producing, when the box was
opened, eleven ballot-papers inscribed with two crosses instead of one,
and valueless. Here, should the charges against a disti