The policeman’s advice was taken in the selection of a central committee-room,—the Green Swan with Two Tails, which, let me confess and regret, was a comparatively humble place for head-quarters. I should have very much preferred the first hotel in the town; and if that had been possible, I would have yielded up the place in which Mr. Jollefat was enthroned. However, as the sequel will show, this matter did not influence the success of the coup.
Without further loss of time—that is to say, early next morning—my man went to work. The first person to whom, as the agent of the independent candidate, he paid his addresses, was not the mayor of the town, nor the town-clerk, nor an alderman, nor a town-councillor, but he was—a bill-sticker.
There consequently appeared upon the walls an address, which ran as follows:
“To the Free and Independent Electors of the Borough of N——.
“Gentlemen,—Your borough has too often been the arena of faction fights. You have been regarded as the supporters of Whig and Tory. Your grand historical traditions and your eminent public virtues have not been respected, cared for, understood, or apparently known to your representatives in Parliament, or even those who have hitherto aspired to the most honourable distinction of representing you in the Legislature.
“Gentlemen, although a stranger among you, having resided many years abroad, and having but lately returned to my native country; having studied the political institutions of Europe and America, and seen them in practical operation; and having, moreover, read the history of your ancient town, which forms so many brilliant pages in the grand history of our native country; and having had the good fortune to inherit an ample estate,—I have resolved to place my services at the disposal of my country, with a special desire to serve the interests of a free and enlightened constituency, such as that of N——.
“Gentlemen, under these circumstances I offer myself as a candidate at the forthcoming election for the representation of your borough; and although I shall immediately do myself the honour of waiting upon you individually, and canvassing each of you at his own fireside, I think it right to lay before you concisely a statement of my political principles.
“Gentlemen, I am in favour of the broadest and most comprehensive scheme of reform which political philosophy can devise. If you should do me the honour to return me to Parliament (as I feel confident you will), I shall, by my speeches and votes, support every measure which tends to increase the happiness of the people, by extending the demand for labour, increasing the wages of industry, at the same time adding to the profits of capital, and promoting the comfort of every man, woman, and child throughout her Majesty’s wide dominions.
“Gentlemen, I am in favour of other measures of political and social amelioration which benefit all, but injure none, in their comprehensiveness and beneficence, that I find it impossible to properly explain, within the limit of a printed address, but upon which I shall have many opportunities to offer explanations when I meet you face to face in public meeting, in your own houses, and upon the hustings on the day of nomination.
“Gentlemen,
I have the honour to subscribe myself,
Your very faithful and obedient servant,
Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps.”
The bill-sticker lost no time in placarding the walls of the town; but his functions had been largely anticipated by the disclosures of the toll-bar keeper, Boniface, his boots, Bung, and his ostler.
The town was set in a commotion. The Green Swan with Two Tails was crowded in the bar-parlour, in front of the bar, and in every public room it had. Mr. Smith (I mean Mr. Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps) received a dozen offers of professional assistance, two or three score of requests for the honour of making his acquaintance, letters innumerable for his autograph, with other delicate and indelicate overtures of good-will and friendship,—all within a few hours. Mr. Fipps, after he had returned to London, and been retransformed into “Smith,” told me it was the “jolliest spree” he had ever been engaged in during his life; and my man told me that the fictitious candidate played his part with the skill of a genius.
In the course of the morning a crowd assembled in front of the Swan with Two Tails, and loud huzzas were heard in honour of “the independent” and now “popular candidate.” A speculative printer had, without orders, either in the excess of political zeal, or in reliance upon a careless auditing of accounts, got another placard stuck upon the walls, which read thus:
“Fipps for ever!!!”
The mob became towards afternoon a little impatient and uproarious, and the candidate had to present himself on the balcony of the hotel, and harangue his admirers. I regret to say, no short-hand writer being present, I cannot give the reader a report of this speech, which I am sorry for, because I have been told it was one of the grandest orations of the kind ever uttered by a pretended or real candidate. However, let that pass.
Towards evening a deputation asked permission to wait upon Horatio Mount-Stephen Fipps, Esq., to express their admiration of the principles so clearly and exactly enunciated in his address, and so beautifully illustrated and enforced in his most eloquent speech. Their request was granted with the utmost cordiality by that great man, and he supplicated them to do him the honour of dining with him.
The hospitality of the Green Swan with Two Tails was, I am told, worthy of a more pretentious establishment; and ample justice was done, as the penny-a-liners say, to the culinary skill of the hostess. Mine host’s vintages were also duly appreciated, or at least I judge so by the items of account which I afterwards saw under the date of this entertainment. It is true that the good things bore familiar names; but that circumstance may rather be ascribed to the English character of the candidate and his admirers, than to the limited capacity or means of the landlord and his better half. Sherry and port and champagne—champagne and port and sherry—seemed to have been mingled in profusion with cigars that, in the aggregate, weighed a few score pounds, and were (I take it from the price they cost me or my principal) the finest that Havannah could produce.
At this improvised banquet speeches were of course delivered, toasts were drunk, and songs were sang, until the finale,—a medley of variations from “Rule Brittania,” “God Save the Queen,” and “We won’t go Home till Morning,”—which last chorus embodied a resolution that the patriotic admirers of Fipps did faithfully perform.
Out of this party a committee was formed by the sober men; for, let it be observed, Smith—that is, I mean Fipps—kept faith by keeping sober with a constant eye to results; and all now was expected to go on merrily as a marriage-bell.
The next day was spent very much as the previous one had been, except that the third and popular candidate, as a matter of form, called upon a number of respectable inhabitants, and went through the rôle of a candidate’s duties, such as shaking hands with one or two loungers in front of the hotel clad in soiled smock-frocks, kissing a few slobbering babies, talking pleasantly to the voters’ wives, and expounding principles to the voters themselves.
On this day the attorney of Mr. Twitch sent a note by hand to the attorney of Mr. Jollefat, proposing that these ravens should meet in confidence, and without prejudice, to discuss a matter of importance to both the candidates. Mr. Jollefat’s legal adviser replied by assenting to the conference. They met. Fipps’s candidature was the theme of discussion. Twitch’s attorney said he had telegraphed to Brookes’s, and the Reform, and to Mr. Coppock, but he could learn nothing about Fipps. He was not known to the party, and they thought he must be some adventurer, whose wealth, if it had any other than an imaginary existence at all, must be grossly exaggerated. Mr. Jollefat’s attorney said that he had in like manner