own destruction strides within the circle to seize its prey!"

"You shall have my first frank, Levy," said Randal, "to enclose your
letter to Mr. Thornhill's solicitor. This affair of the election is
over; we must now look to what else rests on our hands."

"What the devil is that placard?" cried Levy, turning pale.

Randal looked, and right up the market-place, followed by an immense
throng, moved, high over the heads of all, a Yellow Board, that seemed
marching through the air, cometlike:--

Two o'clock p.m.

RESIGNATION OF FAIRFIELD.

------

YELLOWS!

Vote For

AVENEL AND EGERTON.

(Signed) Timothy Alljack

Yellow Committee Room.

"What infernal treachery is this?" cried Randal, livid with honest
indignation.

"Wait a moment; there is Avenel!" exclaimed Levy; and at the head of
another procession that emerged from the obscurer lanes of the town,
walked, with grave majesty, the surviving Yellow candidate. Dick
disappeared for a moment within a grocer's shop in the broadest part of
the place, and then culminated at the height of a balcony on the first
story, just above an enormous yellow canister, significant of the
profession and the politics of the householder. No sooner did Dick, hat
in hand, appear on this rostrum, than the two processions halted below,
bands ceased, flags drooped round their staves, crowds rushed within
hearing, and even the poll clerks sprang from the booth. Randal and Levy
themselves pressed into the throng. Dick on the balcony was the Deus ex
machina.

"Freemen and electors!" said Dick, with his most sonorous accents,
"finding that the public opinion of this independent and enlightened
constituency is so evenly divided, that only one Yellow candidate can be
returned, and only one Blue has a chance, it was my intention last night
to retire from the contest, and thus put an end to all bickerings and
ill-blood (Hold your tongues there, can't you!). I say honestly, I
should have preferred the return of my distinguished and talented young
nephew--honourable relation--to my own; but he would not hear of it, and
talked all our Committee into the erroneous but high-minded notion, that
the town would cry shame if the nephew rode into parliament by breaking
the back of the uncle." (Loud cheers from the mob, and partial cries of
"We 'll have you both!")

"You'll do n