But events like these were mere oases in a desert of ceaseless drudgery. The fight grew sterner and stiffer, and, as always happens on these occasions, the neutral and the apathetic began to bestir themselves and take sides. A week before the election there was not an impartial or unbiassed person left in Stoneleigh. Collisions between supporters of either party became frequent and serious. On the first occasion, when a Conservative sought to punctuate an argument by discharging a small gin-and-ginger into the face of his Liberal opponent, and the Liberal retaliated by felling the Conservative to the earth with a pint-pot, Stridge and I wrote quite effusively to one another apologising for the exuberance of our friends. A week later, when certain upholders of my cause bombarded Stridge's emporium with an assortment of Stridge's own eggs, hitting one of Mr Stridge's white-jacketed assistants in the eye, and severely damaging the frontage of Mr Stridge's Italian warehouse—whereupon local and immediate supporters of the cause of Stridge squared matters by putting three bombardiers into a horse-trough—Mr Stridge and I expressed no sort of regret to one another whatsoever, but referred scathingly, amid rapturous cheers, at our next meetings to the blackguardly policy of intimidation and hooliganism by which the other side found it necessary to bolster up a barren cause and hopeless future; all of which shows that things were tuning up to concert pitch.
Results of other elections were coming in every day, and they were not by any means favourable to our side. Still, we kept on smiling, and talked largely about the swing of the pendulum—almost as useful a phrase as "Mesopotamia" of blessed memory—and other phenomena of reaction, and hoped for the best. Champion, who had been returned for his constituency by a thumping majority, had promised to come down and speak for me at a great meeting two nights before the election; and Dubberley, who had lost his seat, threatened to come and help me to lose mine.
With the exception of Robin, who appeared to be made of some material ære perennius, we were all getting the least bit "tucked up," from my humble self down to Phillis, who appeared at breakfast one morning looking flushed and rather too bright-eyed.
"Electioneering seems to be telling on you, old lady," I remarked. "Feeling quite well—eh?"
"Just a teeny headache, daddy. But"—hastily—"I can come with you to the meeting in the theatre to-morrow night, can't I? it will be such fun!"
"Meeting? My little girl, it does not begin till an hour after your bed-time."
"That's why I want to go," said my daughter frankly. "Besides, I do love pantomimes—especially the clowns!" She wriggled ecstatically.
Even the revelation of the plain truth—that the pantomime would be called by another name and the clowns would appear in mufti—failed to assuage Phillis's thirst for the dramatic sensation promised by a meeting in a theatre. I was, as usual, wax in her small hands; and, man-like, I threw the onus negandi upon Eve's shoulders.
"Ask your mother," I said; and flew to my day's work.
Thank goodness, it was almost the last. To-morrow would be the eve of the poll, and at night we were to hold our monster meeting. Three thousand people would be present; a local magnate, Sir Thomas Wurzel (of Heycocks), would occupy the chair; what one of our local reporters insisted on calling "the élite of the bon ton" would be ranged upon the platform; and the meeting would be addressed by John Champion, Robin,—they always wanted him now,—and the much-enduring Candidate. The audience would, further, be made the recipients of a few remarks from the Chair and (unless something providential happened) from Dubberley, who was to second a vote of thanks to somebody—a performance which might take anything up to fifty minutes. Altogether a feast of oratory, and a further proof, if any were needed, that the English are a hardy race.