"Why, he's been speaking against me at nearly every one of your meetings!"
I protested.
"That's all very well," Mr. Harrison complained; "but he's not what I should call a convincing speaker. He is a democrat all right, and a people's man—and all the rest of it; but he hasn't got quite the right way of advocating our principles. I have been obliged to ask him to discontinue public speaking until after the election. The fact of it is, I really believe he's cost us a good many more votes than he's gained. All he says is very well; but when he sits down one feels that our people are all for what they can get out of it—and yours are prepared to give their services for nothing."
"What's all this mean?" I asked, waving my hand toward the field.
Mr. Harrison looked at me very steadily indeed. Then he looked at Eve. I can only hope that my own expression was as guileless as Eve's.
"I told you about that hint we were obliged to give Mr. Bundercombe," Mr. Harrison went on. "I suppose this is the result of it. He seems to have bewitched the whole of Little Bildborough. There's Jonas there, who was due to speak in four places today—he will take no notice of anybody. I walked by the side of his machine, begging him to get down and come and keep his engagements, and he took no more notice of me than if I'd been a rabbit!
"There's his cousin, who has more hold upon the nonconformists of the district than any man I know—sitting under a hedge drinking out of a tumbler! There are at least a score of men with their eyes glued on that tent who ought to be hard at work in the district. I am beginning to doubt whether they'll even be in in time to vote!"
"Well, we must be getting on, anyway," I said. "See you later, Mr.
Harrison!"
Mr. Harrison nodded a little gloomily and we glided off. Eve squeezed my hand under the rug.
"Isn't dad a dear!" she murmured in my ear.
Eve was one of the first to congratulate me when, late that night, the results came in and I found that by a majority of twenty-seven votes I had been elected the member for the division.