“We’ll have to see about it, Stella,” said Alec. “When there’s time.”
“Talking about Bingham,” Oliver told them; “you know Bingham’s story about Jim Whelan keeping sober for two weeks, for the first time in twenty years, to vote for Winter? Wouldn’t touch a thing—no, he was going to do it this time, if he died for it; it was disagreeable to refuse drinks, but it was going to be worth his while. Been boasting about the post-office janitorship Winter was to give him if he got in. Well, in he came to Number Eleven this morning all dressed up, with a clean collar, looking thirstier than any man you ever saw, and gets his paper. Young Charlie Bingham is deputy returning officer at Number Eleven. In a second back comes Whelan. ‘This ballot’s marked; he says; ‘you don’t fool me.’ ‘Is it?’ says Charlie, taking it out of his hand. ‘That’s very wrong, Jim; you shouldn’t have marked it,’ and drops it into the ballot-box. Oh, Jim was wild! The paper had gone in blank, you see, and he’d lost all those good drunks and his vote too! He was going to have Charlie’s blood right away. But there it was—done. He’d handed in his ballot—he couldn’t have another.”
They all laughed, I fear, at the unfortunate plight of the too suspicious Whelan. “Why did he think the ballot was marked?” asked Advena.
“Oh, there was a little smudge on it—a fly-spot or something, Charlie says. But you couldn’t fool Whelan.”
“I hope,” said Stella meditatively, “that Lorne will get in by more than one. He wouldn’t like to owe his election to a low-down trick like that”
“Don’t you be at all alarmed, you little girlish thing,” replied her brother. “Lorne will get in by five hundred.”
John Murchison had listened to their excited talk, mostly in silence, going on with his dinner as if that and nothing else were the important matter of the moment. Mrs Murchison had had this idiosyncrasy of his “to put up with” for over thirty years. She bore it now as long as she could.
“FATHER!” she exploded at last. “Do you think Lorne will get in by five hundred?”
Mr Murchison shook his head, and bestowed his whole attention upon the paring of an apple. If he kept his hopes to himself, he also kept his doubts. “That remains to be seen,” he said.
“Well, considering it’s your own son, I think you might show a little more confidence,” said Mrs Murchison. “No thank you; no dessert for me. With a member of the family being elected—or not—for a seat in Parliament, I’m not the one to want dessert.”