what your man is a-going to get to-day. Set
of----"

Robin smiled benignantly upon him, and glanced at the Returning Officer.

"You hear what this gentleman says?" he remarked.

"I do," replied the official.

"Is it not a fact that he has annulled his vote by making unnecessary
marks on his voting-paper?" continued Robin solemnly.

"That is so," assented the Returning Officer. "I'm afraid your vote
won't count this time, Mr Hoppett. Good morning!"

There was a roar of delighted laughter from friend and foe, and the
fermenting Hoppett was cast forth.

I succeeded in getting back to the hotel for ten minutes at
luncheon-time. Dolly met me--pale, sleepless, but unbeaten.

"The doctor is with her just now," she said. "She has been in fearful
pain, poor kiddy; but he has given her a drug of some sort, and she is
easier now."

"Couldn't I see her, just a moment?" I said wistfully.

"The answer to that question, sir," replied Dolly, "is in the negative."

We both smiled resolutely at this familiar tag, and Dolly concluded--

"Kitty is lying down. I made her. But she is going to get up when
they--I mean----"

I detected a curious confusion in her voice.

"When what?" I asked.

"Nothing."

I surveyed my sister-in-law uneasily

"Are they expecting--a crisis, then?"

"Yes--a sort of a one."

"When?"

Dolly seemed to consider.

"About five," she said.

"Hadn't I better be near, in case----?"

"Where are you to be this afternoon?"

"Hunnable."

Dolly nodded her head reflectively.

"When can you be back?" she asked.

"I can do it by five, I should think."

"That will be soon enough. The doctor said that if--you were wanted, it
would be about then. Good-bye, old gentleman!"

"Good-bye, Dolly! Mind you go to bed." (We seem to have spent a large
portion of that twenty-four hours urging each other to go to bed.)

Then I went back to work.

Polling had been brisk during the dinner-hour, and both Cash and Robin
considered that we were doing fairly well. Things would be slack at
Stoneleigh itself during the afternoon, and the obvious and politic
course now was to drive over to the fishing village of Hunnable--I had
only time for one, and this was the most considerable--and catch my
marine constituents as they emerged from the ocean, Proteus-like,
between three and four o'clock.

I did so, and for the space of an hour and a half I solicited the
patronage of innumerable tarry mariners, until their h