on
each other's toes; and intermittent activity at head-quarters; and
ominous quiet at the parsonage.

Zotique was mysterious, and in better humor. He supervised with
determination, and seemed to know how to calculate the exact effect of
everything. Breboeuf was marvellously transformed into a little flying
spider, running backwards and forwards strengthening Haviland's web. The
Honorable seemed to act slowly, but really with deliberation and effect,
remarking neglected points, and himself seeing that certain "weak ones"
were brought to the right side of the poll. The schoolmaster was away
haranguing the back parishes. For the Blue side, Picault and Grandmoulin
appeared but once on the scene, but the energy of Ross de Bleury was
astonishing. Cajoling, ordering, opening bottles aside and treating,
volubly greeting everybody in his strong voice all day, he seemed to
have raised supporters for his party of whom no one would have dreamt
except Zotique; but the little closet up in the attic satisfied the
requirements of strict logic.

Haviland had added the fatigues of the last night to weeks of wearing
labor, with consequences at length upon his fund of spirits, and also
plainly on his face. He felt, like Grandmoulin, that his battle was
principally with De la Lande in the back of the county, cheering up his
ranks.

About two o'clock Zotique drove over to Misericorde alone. He did not
return for an hour and a half, and when he did, his expression had
altered to one of decided triumph, though still mysterious and silent
Zotique, in fact, the evening before, when he drove to Misericorde in
Josephte's little gig, found what he had suspected to be the truth, that
Benoit and Spoon had bought every vote of the hamlet; and paid for them,
in the interest of Libergent; but he still believed it possible,--Benoit
being incapacitated, and Spoon, he felt sure, not likely to turn up--to
bend this plastic material the other way with the same tool, and
casting, therefore, aside all delicate distinctions, he succeeded, by a
reasonable hour in the evening, in obtaining once more the adhesion of
the _hotellier_ and most of the population, giving--for he had no
Government funds like his opponents--his own personal notes for the
amounts, and enjoining on the tavern-keeper to have the whole of the
suffrages polled early. This was all he could do, as it was impossible
for him to be present on the morrow, or to delegate any other person of
Ha