For I'm a Carpet, and he was
A Carpet-Beater.
LEAVES FROM A CANDIDATE'S DIARY.
Thursday, June 12.—Letters from Billsbury arrive by every post, Horticultural Societies, sea-side excursions, Sunday School pic-nics, cricket club fêtes, all demand subscriptions, and, as a rule, get them. If this goes on much longer I shall be wound up in the Bankruptcy Court. Shall have to make a stand soon, but how to begin is the difficulty. Pretty certain in any case to put my foot down in the wrong place, and offend everybody. Amongst other letters came this one:—
4, Stone Street, Billsbury, June 10.
Sir,—I venture to appeal to your generosity in a matter which I am sure you will recognise to be of the highest importance. My services to the Conservative Party in Billsbury are well-known. I can safely say that no man has, during the last ten years, worked harder than I have to promote Conservative interests, and for a smaller reward. My exertions at the last election brought on a violent attack of malarial fever, which laid me up for some months, and from which I still suffer. The shaky character of my hand-writing attests the sufferings I have gone through, and the shattered condition of my bodily health at the present moment. I lost my situation as head-clerk in the Export Department of the Ironmongers' Association, and found myself, at the age of forty, compelled to begin life again with a wife and three children. Everything I have turned my hand to has failed, and I am in dire want. May I ask you, under these circumstances, to be so good as to advance me £500 for a few months. I will give any security you like. Perhaps I might repay some part of the loan by doing work for you during the election. This must be a small matter to a wealthy and generous man like you. To me it is a matter of life and death. Anxiously awaiting your early and favourable reply, and begging you to keep this application a secret,
I remain, Sir, Yours, faithfully, HENRY PIDGIN.
That sounded heart-breaking, but I happened to know that Mr. PIDGIN's "malarial fever" was nothing but delirium tremens, brought on by a prolonged course of drunkenness. Hence his shaky handwriting, &c. BLISSOP had warned me against him. Wrote back that, in view of the Corrupt Practices Act, it was impossible for me to relieve individual cases.