I took a stroll, in order to collect my thoughts; and after cudgelling my brain for an hour or two, hit upon the following expedient, which I carried out in the manner described.
I hastened to London by a midnight train, took a cab from the Euston Station, and knocked up a clever fellow in my own line of business, who was instructed by me, and who acted under my direction to the letter and spirit, so that the ruse was, as the reader will see, entirely successful. As far as I could, of course, I directly superintended the details of my scheme.
Residing in the neighbourhood of Soho was a man of considerable ability, who, as I was informed, and have now good reasons for believing, could talk and write with great ease and facility. What his political principles were I do not know, nor did I then care about any more than he did himself. He was ready to accept the engagement which I offered him. For a price he agreed to become a third candidate for the representation of N——.
My man—the new candidate—and I, after quitting the lodgings of the former, went to an adjacent hostelry, where, having secured a private room, and called for pens, ink, and paper, cigars, and a bottle of wine, we concocted an address to “the free and independent electors” of the borough we were to humbug. This was taken to a printer, who, for a little more than ordinary pay, got it into type, and printed off five hundred copies within three hours.
We next paid a visit to the shop of a well-known clothes-dealer not far off, whose name has a flavour of Hebrew in its orthography, where our candidate got rigged out in admirable style; although at an expense, I think even now, a little extravagant. When thus costumed in the habit of a gentleman, he really looked such; and with the influence of external prosperity, and, I suppose, the magic of twenty sovereigns in his pocket (such a sum as he had not been in the enjoyment of, I fancy, for a very long while), all the traces of want and dissipation left his countenance. He talked with additional volubility, and became so eloquent, that I really thought it a pity he was not the real instead of the sham aspirant for senatorial dignity.
I plead guilty to a passing idea which then possessed me, and suggested an odious comparison. I thought he would have fitted the character of M.P. much better than our candidate Mr. Jollefat, whose jackal or provider he really was.
I next took our party to a restaurant in Regent Street, where I called for, and paid for, a sumptuous dinner.
Over our wine suggestion and plot developed themselves grandly. I became indebted for many valuable hints to my new chum and his clever friend. We smoked, and chatted, and afterwards strolled in St. James’s Park until the time began to arrive for our leaving Town.
One other call had to be made at a trunk-maker’s for two or three goodly portmanteaus, which, although expense was not of much importance, I preferred to have second-hand, as I thought shabbiness, or at least a soiled appearance, would look better, as an accessory to the scheme or great trick we had already begun to play out.
I should also tell the reader that I promised “the popular candidate” in embryo a bonus of fifty pounds if he played his part skilfully, and kept good faith; but I gave him no security beyond my word (from which I never departed in my life) for the fulfilment of my part of the contract. Neither of us had then, or thereafter, to regret the manner in which it was executed and paid for.
The portmanteaus were stocked from an outfitter’s, a hosier’s, a perfumer’s, and other tradesmen.
We also purchased a large, heavy, wooden box from a dealer in antiquities. It had huge steel clasps, and a ponderous lock. It looked like a thing designed for the keeping of treasure, and a thing customarily so employed. We filled this box.
We then went to the printer’s, where the copies of the placard we had ordered, and of which we had not thought it necessary to see a proof, were all worked off; and it looked, in clear bold type, fascinating to the eye of each of us, but most charming of all it perhaps seemed to the man who embodied most of its unreality.
It is astonishing how many excellent devices, and how many grand projects and schemes of lofty usefulness, are marred by inattention to detail, or it may be the want of a single but essential ingredient. This was nearly the case on the present occasion. My Great Electioneering Trick had almost failed from an oversight in its initiation. We had, up to this moment, retained no lawyer or attorney,—a most essential feature of such a plot as that we had engaged in. This omission was discovered by me just in time to be filled up. We heard of an attorney—a low sort of fellow, I believe—who lived in the neighbourhood. I hired him, and sent him down with the other two to the borough of N—— that night.
I parted company with my friends at the Euston Station. They proceeded a little more than a hundred miles to the populous town of H—— by railway, and there alighted. From this point the journey was performed in a lumbering post-chaise, as I had desired my party not on any account to arrive at the town of N—— before twelve o’clock at night. I preferred that it should be a little after one in the morning, and I suggested they might as well get up a little sensation on their arrival. This I told them might easily be done, by a pretended anxiety to keep their arrival dark and quiet.
My instructions herein were obeyed, as I afterwards ascertained, with unerring exactness.
There was, at a very short distance on the outside of the town, a toll-bar, always locked at night, and the keeper of which was not renowned for his vigilance or wakefulness. The party found a trifle of real difficulty in gaining admission to the borough. It was some time before the man at the toll-house, rubbing his eyes, opened his little wicket, and came forth to unlock the gate. As he did so, he was startled by the sight of a vehicle with three persons in it, and heavily laden.
The man’s sagacity penetrated, as he thought, the whole secret. He winked, and nodded, and grinned significantly. He saw in one of the party another candidate for the franchise of the free and independent electors; and in the other two his agents. His acute vision dived through the keyhole of that box, and there beheld a weight of gold, which he defined, in conversation next day, as “such a sight as he never saw in his life before even at an election.” My man kept up the delusion well, by throwing two half-crowns to the fellow; and each of his companions tossed a handful of small coin at him, as he closed the gate after them.
Away rolled, at a slow pace, the heavily-laden vehicle, the horses throbbing and panting, and the riders chuckling to their hearts’ content.
At length the town of N—— was reached. As quietly and mysteriously as possible the vehicle was driven by the strangers, its occupants, up to the hotel of our opponent; and, after ringing the bell, refusing to accept the servants’ answer, and insisting upon awakening the host, my man tried to strike a bargain with the hotel-keeper (putting him under confidence) to let his house as the central committee-room of the “independent candidate.” Boniface was proof against temptation. He had let his house to Mr. Sallow Twitch, the Whig candidate, and he was “not a-going to break his engagement—not he.” He never had done such a thing in his life, and never would. They must go elsewhere, he said; and the interview was closed by the irate landlord sheering off to bed, telling them he didn’t want to have no more to do with them.
Next the party went to the hotel where Mr. Jollefat was staying, and in which he held his quarters. A similar interview with Mr. Bung, at that establishment, ended not unlike the conference with Mr. Boniface.
At last a solitary medieval-looking policeman was observed torpidly creeping along the Market-place, and for a consideration he undertook, in the first place, to find the best quarters now available, and in the second to keep the arrival of his patrons