and cut their
throats now it is a wonder," he said over and over again. Even Sir
Thomas caught something of the feeling of triumph, and began almost
to hope that he might be successful. Nevertheless the number of men
who could not quite make up their minds as to what duty required of
them till the day of the election was considerable, and Mr. Pile
triumphantly whispered into Mr. Trigger's ear his conviction that
"after all, things weren't going to be changed at Percycross quite so
easily as some people supposed."

When Moggs was utterly discarded by the respectable leaders of the
liberal party in the borough,--turned out of the liberal inn at
which were the head-quarters of the party, and refused the right
of participating in the liberal breakfasts and dinners which were
there provided, Moggs felt himself to be a triumphant martyr. His
portmanteau and hat-box were carried by an admiring throng down to
the Cordwainers' Arms,--a house not, indeed, of the highest repute in
the town,--and here a separate committee was formed. Mr. Westmacott
did his best to avert the secession; but his supporters were
inexorable. The liberal tradesmen of Percycross would have nothing to
do with a candidate who declared that inasmuch as a man's mind was
more worthy than a man's money, labour was more worthy than capital,
and that therefore the men should dominate and rule their masters.
That was a doctrine necessarily abominable to every master tradesman.
The men were to decide how many hours they would work, what
recreation they would have, in what fashion and at what rate they
would be paid, and what proportion of profit should be allowed to the
members, and masters, and creators of the firm! That was the doctrine
that Moggs was preaching. The tradesmen of Percycross, whether
liberal or conservative, did not understand much in the world of
politics, but they did understand that such a doctrine as that, if
carried out, would take them to a very Gehenna of revolutionary
desolation. And so Moggs was banished from the Northern Star, the
inn at which Mr. Westmacott was living, and was forced to set up his
radical staff at the Cordwainers' Arms.

In one respect he certainly gained much by this persecution. The
record of his election doings would have been confined to the columns
of the "Percycross Herald" had he carried on his candidature after
the usual fashion; but, as it was now, his doings were blazoned in
the London newspapers. The "Dail