r fall with Dr.
Shrapnel, and be hanged to all that humbug.'

Timothy rubbed his hands with an abstracted air of washing. 'Well,
commander, well, sir, they say a candidate's to be humoured in his
infancy, for he has to do all the humouring before he's many weeks old at
it; only there's the fact!--he soon finds out he has to pay for his first
fling, like the son of a family sowing his oats to reap his Jews. Credit
me, sir, I thought it prudent to counteract a bit of an apothecary's shop
odour in the junior Liberal candidate's address. I found the town
sniffing, they scented Shrapnel in the composition.'

'Every line of it was mine,' said Beauchamp.

'Of course it was, and the address was admirably worded, sir, I make bold
to say it to your face; but most indubitably it threatened powerful drugs
for weak stomachs, and it blew cold on votes, which are sensitive plants
like nothing else in botany.'

'If they are only to be got by abandoning principles, and by anything but
honesty in stating them, they may go,' said Beauchamp.

'I repeat, my dear sir, I repeat, the infant candidate delights in his
honesty, like the babe in its nakedness, the beautiful virgin in her
innocence. So he does; but he discovers it's time for him to wear clothes
in a contested election. And what's that but to preserve the outlines
pretty correctly, whilst he doesn't shock and horrify the optics? A dash
of conventionalism makes the whole civilized world kin, ye know. That's
the truth. You must appear to be one of them, for them to choose you.
After all, there's no harm in a dyer's hand; and, sir, a candidate
looking at his own, when he has won the Election . . .'

'Ah, well,' said Beauchamp, swinging on his heel, 'and now I'll take my
leave of you, and I apologize for bringing you down here so early. Please
attend to what I have said; it's peremptory. You will give me great
pleasure by dining with me to-night, at the hotel opposite. Will you? I
don't know what kind of wine I shall be able to offer you. Perhaps you
know the cellar, and may help me in that.'

Timothy grasped his hand, 'With pleasure, Commander Beauchamp. They have
a bucellas over there that 's old, and a tolerable claret, and a Port to
be inquired for under the breath, in a mysteriously intimate tone of
voice, as one says, "I know of your treasure, and the corner under ground
where it lies." Avoid the champagne: 'tis the banqueting wine. Ditto the
sherry. One can drink them, one