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an agent who knew his work would stimu late the trade and custom of the little shop by sending in two, or it might be three, casks of beer, and a judicious quantity of rum, so that customers who came to argue with Briggs on the merits of the rival candidates need not necessarily dry up over their dis cussion, until such time as the eloquence of Briggs had melted their hearts and the liquor had softened their brains to the point of prom ising to follow the lead of Briggs when the polling day arrived. A few years before my story opens, an election was pending in Rottenton. Briggs had recently fallen down and injured his leg, and the local surgeon deemed amputation nec essary. A friend of mine, named Mac Price, who had some little property in the town, but who lived in London and was a very popular member of the Stock Exchange, heard of Briggs's trouble from a sister who lived at Rottenton, and, knowing personally the Con servative candidate at the then pending elec tion, with great good feeling got admission for Briggs at one of the London hospitals, where his leg was skilfully amputated; he also gave a small and select dinner party at his own house to certain members of the Stock Exchange ardently attached to the Conservative cause, who got together a lib eral subscription to buy Briggs a wooden leg of the most approved mechanical construc tion; and last, but not least, a donkey, whose office and duty it was to carry Briggs about to the houses of his many customers who preferred being shaved at their own homes; I rather think that the sum subscribed for the purchase of the wooden leg and donkey amounted to something about ¿£150, which left a substantial sum in Briggs's hands. This act of Christian charity, evolved from motives of the purest philanthropy, was fol lowed up by a personal visit to Briggs in the hospital, with the immediate result that he was deeply impressed with the truth of all the leading tenets of the Conservative creed, and two days before the election he arrived

back again at Rottenton, safe and sound in mind and limb, save for the now missing leg, and a vigorous evangelist among his brethren of the doctrines of saving conservatism. The 'longshoremen flocked to his shop to be shaved, and to learn the wholesome doctrines pro pounded by the converted neophyte, and the election was carried in the teeth of the enemy by a triumphant majority of thirteen votes. But now, just before my story commences, the Conservative member had joined the over whelming majority in the land of shadows; the Conservative party had no man of local influence to put forward, and had been com pelled to adopt as their candidate a stranger hailing from London, but unknown in the lit tle borough, and his candidature was being vigorously opposed by a local magnate, who had made money in the place, and owned nearly half of the small houses and shops, and more than half of the public houses in the town, and the chances of the Conserva tive candidate were by no means bright. Briggs, too, had fallen into the rear rank; his little shop was owned by the. local mag nate, he was a year in arrears with his rent, and the local magnate had intimated, in un mistakable language, that if it should so happen that the Conservative candidate should be returned at the head of the poll, the bailiff would take possession of Briggs's shop the morning after the election, and sell him up, stock and all, and turn him out into the street. In vain Briggs begged for mercy, pleaded extreme poverty, and (saddest of all) the recent demise of his beloved donkey and the consequent loss of a considerable portion of his trade and custom in the outlying dis tricts; his last plea was met by the offer of the temporary loan of another quadruped of the same class, conditionally on its being deco rated with the yellow colors of the Liberal cause while perambulating the streets of the borough; the return of the animal to its right owner being made dependent on the return of the Conservative candidate to Parliament at the close of the poll—a very pretty elec-