From Mr. Combermere St. Quintin’s, we went to a bluff, hearty, radical wine-merchant, whom I had very little probability of gaining; but my success with the clerical Armado had inspirited me, and I did not suffer myself to fear, though I could scarcely persuade myself to hope. How exceedingly impossible it is, in governing men, to lay down positive rules, even where we know the temper of the individual to be gained. “You must be very stiff and formal with the St. Quintins,” said my mother. She was right in the general admonition, and had I found them all seated in the best drawing-room, Mrs. St. Quintin in her best attire, and the children on their best behaviour, I should have been as stately as Don Quixote in a brocade dressing-gown; but finding them in such dishabille, I could not affect too great a plainness and almost coarseness of bearing, as if I had never been accustomed to any thing more refined than I found there; nor might I, by any appearance of pride in myself, put them in mind of the wound their own pride had received. The difficulty was to blend with this familiarity a certain respect, just the same as a French ambassador might have testified towards the august person of George the Third, had he found his Majesty at dinner at one o’clock, over mutton and turnips.
In overcoming this difficulty, I congratulated myself with as much zeal and fervour as if I had performed the most important victory; for, whether it be innocent or sanguinary, in war or at an election, there is no triumph so gratifying to the viciousness of human nature, as the conquest of our fellow beings.
But I must return to my wine-merchant, Mr. Briggs. His house was at the entrance of the town of Buyemall; it stood inclosed in a small garden, flaming with crocuses and sunflowers, and exhibiting an arbour to the right, where, in the summer evenings, the respectable owner might be seen, with his waistcoat unbuttoned, in order to give that just and rational liberty to the subordinate parts of the human commonwealth which the increase of their consequence after the hour of dinner, naturally demands. Nor, in those moments of dignified ease, was the worthy burgher without the divine inspirations of complacent contemplation which the weed of Virginia bestoweth. There as he smoked and puffed, and looked out upon the bright crocuses, and meditated over the dim recollections of the hesternal journal, did Mr. Briggs revolve in his mind the vast importance of the borough of Buyemall to the British empire, and the vast importance of John Briggs to the borough of Buyemall.
When I knocked at the door a prettyish maidservant opened it with a smile, and a glance which the vender of wine might probably have taught her himself after too large potations of his own spirituous manufactories. I was ushered into a small parlour—where sat, sipping brandy and water, a short, stout, monosyllabic sort of figure, corresponding in outward shape to the name of Briggs—even unto a very nicety.
“Mr. Pelham,” said this gentleman, who was dressed in a brown coat, white waistcoat, buff-coloured inexpressibles, with long strings, and gaiters of the same hue and substance as the breeches—“Mr. Pelham, pray be seated—excuse my rising, I’m like the bishop in the story, Mr. Pelham, too old to rise;” and Mr. Briggs grunted out a short, quick, querulous, “he—he—he,” to which, of course, I replied to the best of my cachinnatory powers.
No sooner, however, did I begin to laugh, than Mr. Briggs stopped short—eyed me with a sharp, suspicious glance—shook his head, and pushed back his chair at least four feet from the spot it had hitherto occupied. Ominous signs, thought I—I must sound this gentleman a little further, before I venture to treat him as the rest of his species.
“You have a nice situation here, Mr. Briggs,” said I.
“Ah, Mr. Pelham, and a nice vote too, which is somewhat more to your purpose, I believe.”
‘Oh!’ thought I, ‘I see through you now, Mr. Briggs!’—you must not be too civil to one who suspects you are going to be civil, in order to take him in.
“Why,” said I, “Mr. Briggs, to be frank with you, I do call upon you for the purpose of requesting your vote; give it me, or not, just as you please. You may be sure I shall not make use of the vulgar electioneering arts to coax gentlemen out of their votes. I ask you for your’s as one freeman solicits another: if you think my opponent a fitter person to represent your borough, give your support to him in God’s name: if not, and you place confidence in me, I will, at least, endeavour not to betray it.”