' old scoundrel," provided it was said to him by a
gentleman who weighed his words. Since Forster brought in the ballot
he had always gone to the poll regular. He always took his paper and
wrote opposite the names: "_Shan't say a word. Got my living to get.
Yours obediently, Matthias James_"--and would advise everybody else
to do the same.

After him, Renatus Hansombody, carpenter, rose at the back of the
hall and announced that he had a question to put to the Doctor.
The Doctor, by the way, is one of the most popular of the candidates.

"I should like," said Mr. Hansombody, "to ask the Doctor if he will
kindly explain to the company Clauses 5, 6, and 13 of the new Act?"

The Chairman protested that this would occupy more time than the
meeting had to spare.

"In that case," said Mr. Hansombody, "I will confine myself to a test
question. The Act provides that the Chairman of a Parish Meeting is
to be elected by the Meeting. Now suppose the votes for two
gentlemen are equal. In such a case what would the Doctor advise?
For until you have a Chairman elected, there is no Chairman to give a
casting vote."

The Doctor thought that, since we had long ago elected a Chairman by
acclamation, the question was superfluous.

"And you call him a straightforward man!" Mr. Hansombody exclaimed,
turning round on the Meeting. "What I say is, are we to have
pusillanimity in our first Parish Council? What I say is, that a
gentleman who gives a working man such an answer to such a
question--"

At this point the door opened and a shrill voice asked,
"Is Hansombody here?"

"I am here," said Hansombody, "to expose impostors!"

"Because if so, he must please come home at once. Mrs. Hansombody's
cryin'-out!"

"I always said," remarked Old Pilot James, "that this cussed Act
would scare half the women in the Parish before their time."

"Beggin' your pard'n, Doctor," began his denouncer lamely.

"Not at all, not at all," said the Doctor. "We must keep these
matters altogether outside the sphere of party politics."
(_Loud cheering_.)

"Then I'll have to ask you to step along with me."

The two political opponents picked up their hats, and left the room
together.

The Chairman rose as the door closed behind them. "I think," he
said, "this should be a lesson to us to accept the Act in the spirit
in which it was given. If nobody else wishes to ask a question, I
will now take a show of hands: but I warn you all it'll be