owed himself a born politician. The audience cheered,
but the questioner remained standing. He meant to ask another question.

"Sit down--sit down, jackass!" shouted some of the more raucous of the
crowd, but the man was stubborn. He stretched out an arm towards Carnac.

"Bien, look here, my son, you take my advice. Pursue the primrose path
into the meadows of matrimony."

Again Carnac shrank, but his mind rallied courageously, and he said:
"There are other people who want to ask questions, perhaps." He turned
to Barode Barouche. "I don't suggest my opponent has planned this
heckling, but he can see it does no good. I'm not to be floored by
catch-penny tricks. I'm going to win. I run straight. I haven't been
long enough in politics to learn how to deceive. Let the accomplished
professionals do that. They know how."

He waved a hand disdainfully at Barouche. "Let them put forth all that's
in them, I will remain; let them exert the last ounce of energy, I will
prevail; let them use the thousand devices of elections, I will use
no device, but rely upon my policy. I want nothing except my chance in
Parliament. My highest ambition is to make good laws. I am for the man
who was the first settler on the St. Lawrence and this section of the
continent--his history, his tradition, his honour and fame are in the
history books of the world. If I should live a hundred years, I should
wish nothing better than the honour of having served the men whose
forefathers served Frontenac, Cartier, La Salle and Maisonneuve, and all
the splendid heroes of that ancient age. What they have done is for all
men to do. They have kept the faith. I am for the habitant, for the land
of his faith and love, first and last and all the time."

He sat down in a tumult of cheering. Many present remarked that no two
men they had ever heard spoke so much alike, and kept their attacks so
free from personal things.

There had been at this public meeting two intense supporters of Carnac,
who waited for him at the exit from the main doorway. They were Fabian's
wife and Junia.

Barode Barouche came out of the hall before Carnac. His quick eye
saw the two ladies, and he raised his broad-brimmed hat like a Stuart
cavalier, and smiled.

"Waiting for your champion, eh?" he asked with cynical friendliness.
"Well, work hard, because that will soften his fall." He leaned over, as
it were confidentially, to them, while his friends craned their necks to
hear what h