Page:Robert Barr - Lord Stranleigh Philanthropist.djvu/122

 subject for a daily paper. I'll pay cash to the author, and make him sign over the copyright to me."

He hired a taxicab by the day, and called personally on all the stump speakers for the Government side then in London. He could not have chosen a better time for the purchase of eloquence, and the gratified orators themselves offered every assistance, presenting him with addresses which otherwise he would have found trouble in obtaining. Many noted speech-makers had come up from the Midlands, from the North of England, and from Scotland, to receive at headquarters their final instructions for the fray, and the energetic Blake raked them in. Several of these would not accept ready money, but insisted on cheques, which they wished to send home.

Blake, wise in his generation, would not sign cheques, so a compromise was made with money orders. He returned to Stranleigh House that night a very tired man, but there were twenty-one speeches in his possession, together with receipts making over the copyright to the young secretary. If well begun was half-done, Stranleigh's political career had opened most auspiciously, but the phrase "half-done" has more than one meaning, as Stranleigh was to learn next morning.