om typhus and cholera your
abhorrent nose. Not in those days had mankind ever heard of a sanitary
reform! and, to judge of the slow progress which that reform seems
to make, sewer and drain would have been much the same if they had.
Scot-and-lot voters were the independent electors of Lansmere, with the
additional franchise of Freemen. Universal suffrage could scarcely more
efficiently swamp the franchises of men who care a straw what becomes of
Great Britain! With all Randal Leslie's profound diplomacy, all his
art in talking over, deceiving, and (to borrow Dick Avenel's vernacular
phrase) "humbugging" educated men, his eloquence fell flat upon minds
invulnerable to appeals, whether to State or to Church, to Reform or
to Freedom. To catch a Scot-and-lot voter by such frivolous
arguments--Randal Leslie might as well have tried to bring down a
rhinoceros by a pop-gun charged with split peas! The young man who so
firmly believed that "knowledge was power" was greatly disgusted. It was
here the ignorance that foiled him. When he got hold of a man with some
knowledge, Randal was pretty sure to trick him out of a vote.

Nevertheless, Randal Leslie walked and talked on, with most creditable
perseverance. The Blue Committee allowed that he was an excellent
canvasser. They conceived a liking for him, mingled with pity. For,
though sure of Egerton's return, they regarded Randal's as out of the
question. He was merely there to keep split votes from going to the
opposite side; to serve his patron, the ex-minister; shake the paws, and
smell the smells which the ex-minister was too great a man to shake
and to smell. But, in point of fact, none of that Blue Committee knew
anything of the prospects of the election. Harley received all the
reports of each canvass-day. Harley kept the canvass-book locked up from
all eyes but his own, or it might be Baron Levy's, as Audley Egerton's
confidential, if not strictly professional adviser, Baron Levy, the
millionaire, had long since retired from all acknowledged professions.
Randal, however--close, observant, shrewd--perceived that he himself
was much stronger than the Blue Committee believed; and, to his infinite
surprise, he owed that strength to Lord L'Estrange's exertions on
his behalf. For though Harley, after the first day, on which he
ostentatiously showed himself in the High Street, did not openly canvass
with Randal, yet when the reports were brought in to him, and he saw the
names of