eech all right; at any rate, he would
be able by Whit-Monday. He had--he would tell her in confidence--been
taking some lessons in elocution of (or, as he put it, "off") Mr Peter
Benny.

"Did you ever hear tell of a man called Burke?" he asked.

"'Course I did," answered Mrs Bosenna, albeit the question startled her.
"My old nurse told me about him often. He used to go about snatchin'
bodies."

Cai considered a moment, and shook his head. "I don't think mine can be
the same, or Benny wouldn't have recommended him so highly. There was
another fellow that learned to be a speaker by practisin' with his mouth
full of pebbles, which struck me as too thoroughgoin' altogether, and
'specially when you're aimin' no higher than a Parish Council.
To be sure," he confessed, "I did make a start with a brace of
peppermint bull's-eyes, and pretty nigh choked myself. But Benny says
that, for English public speakin', there's no such master as this Burke,
and so I've sent for him."

"Gracious!" exclaimed Mrs Bosenna. "Won't he charge a terrible lot?--
with travellin' expenses too!"

"His works, I mean. The man's dead, and they're in six volumes."

"You'll never get through 'em then, between this and Whitsuntide.
If I was you, I'd keep on at the peppermints."

Although the six volumes of Edmund Burke duly arrived, and Cai made a
bold attempt upon their opening tractate, "A Vindication of Natural
Society,"--thereby hopelessly bemusing himself, since he accepted its
ironical arguments with entire seriousness--in the end he took a shorter
way and procured Mr Benny to write his speeches for him.

These he got by heart in the course of long morning rambles; these he
rehearsed with their accomplished author; these he declaimed in the
solitude of his bed-chamber--until, one day, Mrs Bowldler (whom terror
arresting, had held spellbound for some minutes on the landing) knocked
in to know if Palmerston should run for the doctor.

By dint (or in spite) of them at the election of Parish Councillors Cai
headed the poll with a total of 411 votes. 'Bias, who received 366,
came fourth on the list of elected: but this was no disgrace--a triumph
rather--for one who had omitted to be born in the town. By general
consent the honours stood easy; though, on the strength of his poll, the
new Council began by choosing Cai for its chairman. On him Troy laid
thereby the chief responsibility for the Jubilee festivities now but two
months ahea