Page:All the Year Round - Series 2 - Volume 1.djvu/614

 a jerky kind of manner. Immediately afterwards, backing again towards their chairs, on the extremest edge of which they propped themselves, they hid their hands in their coat-sleeves, and looked round in a furtive manner.

After a few formal speeches, Mr. Potter proceeded at once to business. Addressing Joyce, he said it was probably known to him that the gentleman on whom they had hitherto depended as a candidate for Brocksopp had thrown them over, and, at the eleventh hour, had left them to seek for another representative. In a few well-chosen and diplomatically-rounded sentences, Mr. Potter pointed out that the task that Mr. Bokenham had imposed upon them was by no means so difficult a one as might have been imagined. Mr. Potter would not, he said, indulge in any lengthened speech. His business was simply to explain the wishes of those for whom he and his partner had the honour to act—here he looked towards the leaders of the party, who did not attempt to disguise the fact that they were growing rather bored by the Potterian eloquence—and those wishes were, in so many words, that Mr. Joyce should step into the place which Mr. Bokenham had left vacant.

One of the leaders of the party here manifesting an intention of having something to say, and wishing to say it, Mr. Fyfe promptly interposed with the remark that he should be able to controvert an assertion, which he saw his young friend Mr. Joyce about to make, to the effect that he would be unable to carry on the contest for want of means. He, Mr. Fyfe, was empowered to assert that old Mr. Bokenham was so enraged at his son's defalcation, which he believed to have been mainly brought about by Tory agency, Lord Steppe's father, the Earl of Stair, being a notoriously bigotted Blue, that he was prepared to guarantee the expenses of any candidate approved of by the party and by the town. Mr. Fyfe here pausing to take breath, the leader, who had been previously baulked, cut in with a neat expression of the party's approval of Mr. Joyce, and Mr. Spalding murmured a few incoherent words to the effect that, during a life-long acquaintance with his young friend, the people of Brocksopp had been in entire ignorance that he had anything in him, politically or otherwise, beyond book learning, and that was the main reason for their wishing him to represent them in Parliament.

Although a faint dawning of the truth had come across him when Mr. Harrington announced young Bokenham's defection, Walter Joyce had no definite idea of the honour in store for him. Very modestly, and in very few words, he accepted the candidature, promising to use every exertion for the attainment of success. He was too much excited and overcome to enter into any elaborate discussion at that time. All he could do was to thank the leading members of the party for their confidence, to inform the parliamentary-agent firm that he would wait upon them the next day, and to assure Messrs. Spalding and Moule that the Liberals of Brocksopp would find him among them immediately. Did Walter Joyce falter for one instant in the scheme of retribution which he had foreshadowed, now that he was to be its exponent, now that the vengeance which he had anticipated, was to be worked out by himself? No! On the contrary, he was more satisfied in being able to assure himself of the edge of the weapon, and of the strength of the arm by which the blow should be dealt.

"We calculated too soon upon the effect of young Bokenham's escapade, darling," said Mr. Creswell to his wife, on his return after a day in Brocksopp. "The field is by no means to be left clear to us. The walls of the town are blazing with the placards of a new candidate in the Liberal interest, a clever man, I believe, who is to have all the elder Bokenham's backing, and who, from previous connexion, may probably have certain local interests of his own."

"Previous connexion—local interest? Who can it be?" asked Marian.

"An old acquaintance of yours, I should imagine; at least the name is familiar to me in connexion with your father, and the old days of Helmingham school. The signature to the address is 'Walter Joyce.

striking and suggestive contrast, than that between the French and the English judicial tribunals, it would be difficult to find; or one more clearly marking the striking difference in temperament and mode of thought between the two races. The forms of French legal procedure aid in giving a romantic character to the scenes which pass in the Palais de Justice. The Procureur Impérial, combining in himself the powers of public prosecutor, grand jury, and adviser of the bench, is an official quite unknown to Anglo-Saxon countries; for his office implies a great deal more than those