honour of it. What's that
story they tell of you in one of the American cities or watering-places,
North or South? You would dance at a ball a dozen times with a girl
engaged to a man--who drenched you with a tumbler at the hotel bar, and
off you all marched to the sands and exchanged shots from revolvers; and
both of you, they say, saw the body of a drowned sailor in the water,
in the moonlight, heaving nearer and nearer, and you stretched your man
just as the body was flung up by a wave between you. Picturesque, if you
like!'

'Dramatic, certainly. And I ran away with the bride next morning?'

'No!' roared Palmet; 'you didn't. There's the cruelty of the whole
affair.'

Beauchamp laughed. 'An old messmate of mine, Lieutenant Jack Wilmore,
can give you a different version of the story. I never have fought a
duel, and never will. Here we are at the shop of a tough voter, Mr.
Oggler. So it says in my note-book. Shall we put Lord Palmet to speak to
him first?'

'If his lordship will put his heart into what he says,' Mr. Oggler
bowed. 'Are you for giving the people recreation on a Sunday, my lord?'

'Trap-bat and ball, cricket, dancing, military bands, puppet-shows,
theatres, merry-go-rounds, bosky dells--anything to make them happy,'
said Palmet.

'Oh, dear! then I 'm afraid we cannot ask you to speak to this Mr.
Carpendike.' Oggler shook his head.

'Does the fellow want the people to be miserable?'

'I'm afraid, my lord, he would rather see them miserable.'

They introduced themselves to Mr. Carpendike in his shop. He was a
flat-chested, sallow young shoemaker, with a shelving forehead, who
seeing three gentlemen enter to him recognized at once with a practised
resignation that they had not come to order shoe-leather, though he
would fain have shod them, being needy; but it was not the design of
Providence that they should so come as he in his blindness would have
had them. Admitting this he wished for nothing.

The battle with Carpendike lasted three-quarters of an hour, during
which he was chiefly and most effectively silent. Carpendike would not
vote for a man that proposed to open museums on the Sabbath day. The
striking simile of the thin end of the wedge was recurred to by him for
a damning illustration. Captain Beauchamp might be honest in putting his
mind on most questions in his address, when there was no demand upon him
to do it; but honesty was no antidote to impiety. Thus Carpendike.

As to Sund