e. While the squire was thus employed, his master engaged in
conversation with the stranger, who happened to be a London dealer
travelling for orders, and was well acquainted with the particulars which
our adventurer wanted to know.

It was from this communicative tradesman he learned, that the competitors
were Sir Valentine Quickset and Mr. Isaac Vanderpelft; the first a mere
fox-hunter, who depended for success in his election upon his interest
among the high-flying gentry; the other a stock jobber and contractor of
foreign extract, not without a mixture of Hebrew blood, immensely rich,
who was countenanced by his Grace of----, and supposed to have
distributed large sums in securing a majority of votes among the yeomanry
of the county, possessed of small freeholds, and copyholders, a great
number of which last resided in this borough. He said these were
generally dissenters and weavers; and that the mayor, who was himself a
manufacturer, had received a very considerable order for exportation, in
consequence of which it was believed he would support Mr. Vanderpelft
with all his influence and credit.

Sir Launcelot, roused at this intelligence, called for his armour, which
being buckled on in a hurry, he mounted his steed, attended by Crabshaw
on Gilbert, and rode immediately into the midst of the multitude by which
the hustings were surrounded, just as Sir Valentine Quickset began to
harangue the people from an occasional theatre, formed of a plank
supported by the upper board of the public stocks, and an inferior rib of
a wooden cage pitched also for the accommodation of petty delinquents.

Though the singular appearance of Sir Launcelot at first attracted the
eyes of all the spectators, yet they did not fail to yield attention to
the speech of his brother-knight, Sir Valentine, which ran in the
following strain:--"Gentlemen vreeholders of this here county, I shan't
pretend to meake a vine flourishing speech--I'm a plain-spoken man, as
you all know. I hope I shall always speak my maind without vear or
vavour, as the zaying is. 'T is the way of the Quicksets--we are no
upstarts, nor vorreigners, nor have we any Jewish blood in our veins; we
have lived in this here neighbourhood time out of mind, as you all know,
and possess an estate of vive thousand clear, which we spend at whoam,
among you, in old English hospitality. All my vorevathers have been
parliament-men, and I can prove that ne'er a one o' um gave a zin