Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/283

Rh making two copies of it, directed them to two other sea-ports. When I put these letters into the basket, I smiled at my own simplicity in speculating on the triple improbability—

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However, I considered that the chance of this election lottery-ticket winning for us a vote, although very small, was at least worth the three sheets of letter-paper which it cost our candidate.

Amidst the bustle of the election this subject was entirely forgotten. The first day of polling arrived, and was concluded, and as usual I was sitting, at midnight, alone in the large committee-room, when the door opened, and there entered a man enveloped in a huge box-coat, who advanced towards me. He held out his hand, and grasping mine, said, "I have not altered my political principles." This was Minchin, to whom the pilot, cruizing about on the look-out for the "Herefordshire," had delivered a packet of letters.

The first letter Minchin opened was mine. He immediately went below, told his wife that he must get into the boat which had just put the pilot on board, and hasten to Cambridge, whilst she remained with the children to pursue their voyage to London. Minchin returned in the pilot-boat to Portsmouth, found a coach just ready to start, got up on the roof, borrowed a box-coat, and on arriving in London, drove directly to the committee-room. Finding that it