LEAVES FROM A CANDIDATE'S DIARY.
Billsbury, May 5.—Received the following letter from TOLLAND yesterday:—
45, Main Street, Billsbury, May 3.
DEAR MR. PATTLE,
A committee Meeting of our Council has been summoned for the day after to-morrow (May 5) at eight o'clock P.M., at the Beaconsfield Club, to consider some important questions affecting your Candidature and the plan of campaign to be adopted in prosecuting it. I trust that you may be able to make it convenient to attend, and shall be glad to receive a wire from you to this effect. I may mention to you that I have lately heard, in confidence, that Sir THOMAS CHUBSON's health is causing considerable anxiety to the Radical leaders here. He has attended very few divisions lately, and has offended many of the advanced section by his conduct over the Strike Subvention Bill, which was backed by the Labour Members. Sir THOMAS, however, abstained from the division on the Second Reading. It is just possible that, under the circumstances, he may decide to apply for the Chiltern Hundreds very shortly, and we must be prepared for every emergency.
Yours faithfully, JAMES TOLLAND.
It was a confounded nuisance. I had arranged to take the BELLAMYS to the Scandinavian Exhibition this afternoon, and to dine and go to the theatre with the JACKSONS. Had to put off everything. MARY BELLAMY will be dreadfully annoyed. Wrote specially to her to apologise and explain. They're sure to get that beast POMFRET to take them instead. He's always hanging round. Last week he wrote a lot of verse in MARY's Confession Album, in this style (I copied some of it out, in order to show it to VULLIAMY, who hates him):—
Though, when he's asked his favourite name, a man is apt to stare, he
Must answer, if he knows what's what, "My favourite name is MARY."
And this:—
The vice I detest and abhor above all
Is not dancing four times with you at a ball.
And this, in answer to the question, "What or who would you rather be, if you were not yourself?"—
I'd rather be the rosebud that nestles in your hair,
Or the aunt whose hand you took in yours and pressed upon the stair.
They all admired this slip-slop immensely, and MARY asked me, when I called the other day, if I didn't think it wonderfully clever. I know, when I wrote my answers in her album, it took me days of thought to get them done in prose, and even then they turned out the most ordinary, commonplace things. However I thought they pleased MARY, and now POMFRET steps in with his confounded rhymes. Mrs. BELLAMY's father once published a volume of verse, and is still talked of in the household as "your grandfather the poet." She told me that she thought "a faculty for versification was the mark of a truly refined and delicate mind." Bah! POMFRET's one of the most selfish and calculating ruffians outside a convict prison, and always haggles over his luncheon bills at the Club, till the head-waiter and all the rest nearly go off their heads.
However, I had to come to Billsbury, nilly-willy. Met the Committee after dinner. They were anxious that I should do some canvassing soon, and wanted me, when next I spoke, to explain myself more fully (1) on the Temperance Question and the question of Compensation to Publicans; (2) on the Women's Suffrage Question; (3) on the Labour Question; (4) on Foreign Policy; and (5) with reference to the Billsbury Main Drainage Scheme. I said I would, but I should probably require more than one speech to do it in. Afterwards a very solemn member of the Committee, whose name I forget, got up and made a long speech, in which he observed that my habit of appearing in dress clothes at the meetings had annoyed a good many of my supporters, and that he ventured to suggest to me, for my own good, that I should wear ordinary dress. It seems a good many of the lower lot thought it looked uppish. I'm glad enough not to have to do it any more. There were other points, but I'm too tired to remember them. By the way, I have subscribed to about a dozen more Clubs and Institutions, and have promised to get Mother to open a bazaar here at the end of the month. Back to London to-morrow. What a life!