ead her off at once. If she's a sporting
sort of girl who'll take on Vittie at his own meetings and make things
hum generally, I think I'll engage her and her lot. I don't happen to be
a magistrate myself, but most of them are your supporters. There won't
be a bit of use his trying to have her up for rioting. We'll simply
laugh at him and she'll be worse afterward. Let me see now. She's in
Dublin. 'Trinity Hall,' whatever that is. If I write to-night she'll get
the letter in the morning. Suppose I say 11 a.m."

"I should rather like to be present at the interview," I said.

"You needn't trouble yourself. I sha'n't commit you to anything and the
whole thing will be verbal. There won't be a scrap of paper for her to
show afterward, even if she turns nasty."

It seemed to me likely that there would be paper to show afterward. If
Lalage has Selby-Harrison behind her she will go to that interview with
an agreement in her pocket ready for signature.

"All the same," I said, "I'd like to be there simply out of curiosity."

Titherington shrugged his shoulders.

"Very well," he said, "but let me do the talking. I don't want you to
get yourself tied up in some impossible knot. You'd far better leave it
to me."

I assured him that I did not in the least want to talk, but I persisted
in my determination to be present at the interview. Titherington had
bullied me enough for one evening and my promise to put myself entirely
in his hands was never meant to extend to the limiting of my intercourse
with Lalage. Besides, I enjoyed the prospect of seeing him tied up in
some impossible knot, and I believed that Lalage was just the girl to
tie him.

CHAPTER X

Titherington had a room, temporarily set apart for his use as an office,
in the house of the Conservative and Unionist Parliamentary Association.
Here he was at liberty to spread about on a large table all the papers
he carried in his despatch box and many others. The profusion was most
impressive, and would, I am sure, have struck a chill into the soul of
Vittie had he seen it. Here were composed and written the letters which
I afterward signed, wonderful letters, which like the witches in Macbeth
"paltered in a double sense." Here Titherington entered into agreements
with bill printers and poster artists, for my election was to be
conducted on the best possible system with all the modern improvements,
an object lesson to the rest of Ireland. Here also the interview w