Phillis was decidedly unwell next morning, and Kitty prescribed bed. I am inclined to be an anxious parent, but there was little time for the exercise of any natural instincts on this occasion. Hounded on by the relentless Cash, I spent the day in a final house-to-house canvass, being fortunate enough to find at home several gentlemen who had been out on previous occasions, and who now graciously permitted Kitty to present them with a resplendent portrait of what at first sight appeared to be a hairdresser's assistant in gala costume, but which an obtrusive inscription below proclaimed to be "Inglethwaite! The Man You Know, and Who Knows You!"
After a hasty round of the Committee Rooms I returned to our hostelry, the Cathedral Arms, where, after disposing of two reporters who wanted an advance copy of my evening's speech, and having effusively thanked a pompous individual for a sheaf of statistics on a subject which I cannot recall, but in which no one outside an asylum could have reasonably been expected to take any interest whatever, and which I was at liberty to quote (with due acknowledgments) to any extent I pleased, I sat down with Champion and Robin, faint yet pursuing, to fortify myself with roast-beef and whisky for the labours of the evening.
Presently Kitty entered, with Dolly.
"Who do you think has just arrived?" she said.
"I don't know. Not a deputation, I hope!"
"No. Gerald—from school."
"Great Scott! Expelled?"
"Oh no. It's his half-term exeat. I had forgotten all about it. As it just falls in with the Election, he has come to see you through, he says."
"Right! Give him some food and a bed, and we'll send him round with one of the brakes to-morrow, to bring people up to the poll. He has a gentle compelling way about him that should be useful to us. Has he brought his inarticulate friend?"
"Yes."