ery one had been too busy in the closing
moments of the poll to bestow a thought on them. Then there came a
telephone call at the Unionist Women's Committee-rooms, and the voice of
Hyacinth was heard demanding when the poll would be declared.

"Where are you, and where are the Jutterly children?" asked his mother.

"I've just finished having high-tea at a pastry-cook's," came the answer,
"and they let me telephone. I've had a poached egg and a sausage roll
and four meringues."

"You'll be ill. Are the little Jutterlys with you?"

"Rather not. They're in a pigstye."

"A pigstye? Why? What pigstye?"

"Near the Crawleigh Road. I met them driving about a back road, and told
them they were to have tea with me, and put their donkeys in a yard that
I knew of. Then I took them to see an old sow that had got ten little
pigs. I got the sow into the outer stye by giving her bits of bread,
while the Jutterlys went in to look at the litter, then I bolted the door
and left them there."

"You wicked boy, do you mean to say you've left those poor children there
alone in the pigstye?"

"They're not alone, they've got ten little pigs in with them; they're
jolly well crowded. They were pretty mad at being shut in, but not half
as mad as the old sow is at being shut out from her young ones. If she
gets in while they're there she'll bite them into mincemeat. I can get
them out by letting a short ladder down through the top window, and
that's what I'm going to do _if we win_. If their blighted father gets
in, I'm just going to open the door for the sow, and let her do what she
dashed well likes to them. That's why I want to know when the poll will
be declared."

Here the narrator rang off. A wild stampede and a frantic sending-off of
messengers took place at the other end of the telephone. Nearly all the
workers on either side had disappeared to their various club-rooms and
public-house bars to await the declaration of the poll, but enough local
information could be secured to determine the scene of Hyacinth's
exploit. Mr. John Ball had a stable yard down near the Crawleigh Road,
up a short lane, and his sow was known to have a litter of ten young
ones. Thither went in headlong haste both the candidates, Hyacinth's
mother, his aunt (Mrs. Panstreppon), and two or three hurriedly-summoned
friends. The two Nubian donkeys, contentedly munching at bundles of hay,
met their gaze as they entered the yard. The hoarse sa