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 CHAPTER XXXIV

the middle of October an event happened which threw the town into such a state of wild excitement, that the comparatively unimportant matters of unemployment and distress were almost forgotten.

Sir Graball D'Encloseland had been chosen for an even higher post in the service of his country, and his promotion made it necessary for him to resign his seat and seek re-election. The ragged trousered Tory workmen, as they loitered about the streets with empty stomachs, said to each other that it was a great honour for Mugsborough that their member should be promoted in this way. They boasted about it, and assumed as much swagger in their gait as their broken boots permitted. They stuck election cards bearing Sir Graball's photograph in their windows, and tied bits of blue and yellow ribbon, Sir Graball's colours, on their under-fed children.

The Liberals were furious. They said that an election had been sprung upon them; they had been taken a mean advantage of; they had no candidate ready. It wasn't fair either, because while they, the leading Liberals, had been treating the electors with contemptuous indifference, for months past Sir Graball D'Encloseland had been most active amongst his constituents, cunningly preparing for the contest. He had really been electioneering for the past six months. Last winter he had kicked off at quite a number of football matches, besides doing all sorts of things for the local teams. He had joined the Buffaloes and the Druids, been elected president of the Skull and Crossbones Boys Society, and, although he was not himself an abstainer, he was so friendly to Temperance that he had on several occasions taken the chair at teetotal meetings, to say nothing of the teas to the poor school children and things of that sort. In short, he had been quite an active politician in 363