“I don’t see how that would be of much use,” exclaimed Boy.
“Well, every vote helps, you know,” said Cæsar Maximilian Augustus Claudius Smith (called Thomas for short). “Shall I go and get the polling papers?”
Boy thought that it couldn’t possibly do much harm, so just to please him he told the footman that he might go and get them; and when he returned a few minutes later they were both solemnly filled up and taken back to the Ballot Box. Then Boy finished his breakfast and started for a walk.
The streets were filled with excited groups of people discussing their own prospects of being elected King, and the walls were covered with posters of all shapes and sizes begging for votes. One enterprising man was offering a thousand pounds to every one who would vote for him.
“Why, however can he pay them all?” exclaimed Boy to a person in the street.
“Oh! people are never expected to keep the promises made at elections,” explained the man. “Now I don’t promise anything at all, but you only just vote for me and see what I’ll do for you if I’m made King.”
“I can’t,” said Boy. “I’ve already voted.”
“Oh, bother!” cried the man, “you’re no good to me, then,” and he hurried on to the next person and began to beg for his vote.
Boy was soon surrounded by people bothering him to vote for them and was quite glad to escape down a by-street where there was scarcely any one to be seen, and where his attention was attracted by a curious-looking sign affixed to a house worded like this—