nd Bennet hats?"

"No," answered Old Saltoun, "I don't think it would be a joke. I
think it would be an exceedingly serious and sensible idea."

"Well, I'm jiggered!" cried Harry Fisher, staring at him. "I said
just now it was the first fact you didn't know, and I should say
this is the first joke you didn't see."

"I've seen a good many things in my time," said the old man, in his
rather sour fashion. "I've told a good many lies in my time, too,
and perhaps I've got rather sick of them. But there are lies and
lies, for all that. Gentlemen used to lie just as schoolboys lie,
because they hung together and partly to help one another out. But
I'm damned if I can see why we should lie for these cosmopolitan
cads who only help themselves. They're not backing us up any more;
they're simply crowding us out. If a man like your brother likes to
go into Parliament as a yeoman or a gentleman or a Jacobite or an
Ancient Briton, I should say it would be a jolly good thing."

In the rather startled silence that followed Horne Fisher sprang to
his feet and all his dreary manner dropped off him.

"I'm ready to do it to-morrow," he cried. "I suppose none of you
fellows would back me up."

Then Harry Fisher showed the finer side of his impetuosity. He made
a sudden movement as if to shake hands.

"You're a sport," he said, "and I'll back you up, if nobody else
will. But we can all back you up, can't we? I see what Lord Saltoun
means, and, of course, he's right. He's always right."

"So I will go down to Somerset," said Horne Fisher.

"Yes, it is on the way to Westminster," said Lord Saltoun, with a
smile.

And so it happened that Horne Fisher arrived some days later at the
little station of a rather remote market town in the west,
accompanied by a light suitcase and a lively brother. It must not be
supposed, however, that the brother's cheerful tone consisted
entirely of chaff. He supported the new candidate with hope as well
as hilarity; and at the back of his boisterous partnership there was
an increasing sympathy and encouragement. Harry Fisher had always
had an affection for his more quiet and eccentric brother, and was
now coming more and more to have a respect for him. As the campaign
proceeded the respect increased to ardent admiration. For Harry was
still young, and could feel the sort of enthusiasm for his captain
in electioneering that a schoolboy can feel for his captain in
cricket.

Nor was the admiration und