One little circumstance none of us had anticipated now arose, to our embarrassment. The payment of that bill of the landlord of the Green Swan told the story of Fipps’s purse with approximate accuracy. Mr. Jollefat, the successful candidate, was now suspected by many people of being near the bottom of my Great Trick. To get at him, however, it was necessary to track and attack Fipps, which, I am sorry to say, the disappointed free and independent electors who could not vote at the late election succeeded in doing. How they discovered him is to me a secret at this day; but they certainly did somehow find him out, and they assaulted him by a battery of writs issued out of her Majesty’s Court of Common Pleas, at Westminster. A counsel learned in the law advised that we had a good defence to these actions, on the ground that the agreements for service were contracts to pay money either to induce men to vote—which was bribery—or not to vote, which rendered the engagements null and void. About the first point I believe there could be no doubt; around the second I believe there did exist much room for speculation and legal ingenuity. Mr. Jollefat, however, wished to avoid discredit with his constituents; so it was thought expedient to get rid of the difficulty by another mode. Fipps was a man of cosmopolitan tastes, and he had not the phrenological organs of locality and adhesiveness largely developed. It mattered not much to him on which side of the Atlantic or of the Pacific he dwelt. Somebody on his behalf, an attorney, intimated to the solicitor for Mr. Jollefat that it would be cheaper to “square” Fipps than to submit to the game process all the voters and their actions. One hundred pounds was the sum named as one that would take the eloquent and popular candidate beyond the jurisdiction of her Majesty’s judges and officers. The amount was provided, and he quietly set sail, or rather took steam, for the United States of America, where, I am told, an ample scope and opportunity for the exercise of the peculiar abilities of that popular candidate has always been found in the service of the various parties who divide the spoils of the Model Republic.
MISTAKEN IDENTITY
AN eminently respectable tradesman was seated in his cosy little parlour, or counting-house, at the back of his shop, within a mile of the Mansion House in the City of London, one summer afternoon in the year 1861. His wife was the only other person present on this occasion. It was an unusual circumstance for this lady to be there, as Mr. Delmar also occupied, for purposes of residence, a neat little house in an eastern suburb of the metropolis. He was, moreover, the father of a family. He had four sons and three daughters, whose ages varied between seven and twenty-two. He was churchwarden of the parish in which he carried on business. He was regarded as the very pattern of domestic virtue, and a model of rectitude in business. Few men, indeed, in the whole world enjoyed a better reputation than Mr. Delmar. Nobody had ever breathed a word against his character, and nobody had a right to do so. His fireside was as cheerful as moderate prosperity, a good wife, and dutiful children could render it.
These particulars about Mr. Delmar, his family, his connexions, his circumstances, and his reputation, are necessary to enable the reader to appreciate the incidents I have to describe.
Mrs. Delmar had come to town, on the present occasion, for the legitimate purpose of shopping. She was giving her prudent spouse an estimate of the call she needed—or considered that she needed—to make upon his purse for a variety of domestic necessities, from little child’s-shoes to her own and her eldest daughter’s bonnets. Mr. Delmar was checking off the anticipated outlay, or, as I may put it, revising the domestic estimates, with a prudence quite commendable and, I also think, consistent with a good husband and father’s affection for those dependent on him.
An assistant of Mr. Delmar’s entered the parlour, or counting-house, and observed, “A gentleman wishes to see you, sir, in the shop.”
“Show him in, Williams.”
“He says he wishes to see you privately, sir.”
“Privately!” exclaimed Mr. Delmar, in tones of surprise; “show him in;” and the speaker glanced at his better half as he finished the sentence.
Williams left the room and informed the gentleman, who was standing in the shop, that his master wished him to walk in.