have been the end of my life.'

He plucked out a watch and studied it. 'You're the right sort of
fellow,' he said. 'I can spare a quarter of an hour, and my house is
two minutes off. I'll see you clothed and fed and snug in bed.
Where's your kit, by the way? Is it in the burn along with the car?'

'It's in my pocket,' I said, brandishing a toothbrush. 'I'm a Colonial
and travel light.'

'A Colonial,' he cried. 'By Gad, you're the very man I've been praying
for. Are you by any blessed chance a Free Trader?'

'I am,' said I, without the foggiest notion of what he meant.

He patted my shoulder and hurried me into his car. Three minutes later
we drew up before a comfortable-looking shooting box set among
pine-trees, and he ushered me indoors. He took me first to a bedroom
and flung half a dozen of his suits before me, for my own had been
pretty well reduced to rags. I selected a loose blue serge, which
differed most conspicuously from my former garments, and borrowed a
linen collar. Then he haled me to the dining-room, where the remnants
of a meal stood on the table, and announced that I had just five
minutes to feed. 'You can take a snack in your pocket, and we'll have
supper when we get back. I've got to be at the Masonic Hall at eight
o'clock, or my agent will comb my hair.'

I had a cup of coffee and some cold ham, while he yarned away on the
hearth-rug.

'You find me in the deuce of a mess, Mr--by-the-by, you haven't told me
your name. Twisdon? Any relation of old Tommy Twisdon of the
Sixtieth? No? Well, you see I'm Liberal Candidate for this part of
the world, and I had a meeting on tonight at Brattleburn--that's my
chief town, and an infernal Tory stronghold. I had got the Colonial
ex-Premier fellow, Crumpleton, coming to speak for me tonight, and had
the thing tremendously billed and the whole place ground-baited. This
afternoon I had a wire from the ruffian saying he had got influenza at
Blackpool, and here am I left to do the whole thing myself. I had
meant to speak for ten minutes and must now go on for forty, and,
though I've been racking my brains for three hours to think of
something, I simply cannot last the course. Now you've got to be a
good chap and help me. You're a Free Trader and can tell our people
what a wash-out Protection is in the Colonies. All you fellows have
the gift of the gab--I wish to Heaven I had it. I'll be for evermore
in your debt.'

I had very few notio