But, looking at the present perhaps unprecedented crisis in affairs, Mr Du Boung was prepared to give no more than a very cautious support to the Duke's Government.Arthur Fletcher read Mr Du Boung's address immediately after the Duke's letter.
'The more the merrier,' said Arthur.
'Just so.Du Boung will not rob you of a vote, but he will cut the ground altogether from under the other man's feet.You see that as far as the actual political programme goes there isn't much to choose between any of you.You are all Government men.'
'With a difference.'
'One man in these days is so like another,' continued Gresham sarcastically, 'that it requires eyes to meet the shades of the colours.'
'Then you had better support Du Boung,' said Arthur.
'I think you've just a turn in your favour.Besides I couldn't really carry a vote myself.As for Du Boung, I'd sooner have him than a foreign cad like Lopez.' Then Arthur frowned and Mr Gresham became confused, remembering the catastrophe about the young lady whose story he had heard.'Du Boung used to be plain English as Bung before he got rich and made his name beautiful,'
continued Gresham, 'but I suppose Mr Lopez does come of foreign extraction.'
'I don't know what he comes from,' said Arthur moodily.'They tell me he's a gentleman.However, as we are to have a contest, I hope he mayn't win.'
'Of course you do.And he shan't win.Nor shall the great Du Boung.You shall win, and become Prime Minister, and make me a peer.Would you like papa to be Lord Greshambury?' he said to a little girl, who then rushed into the room.
'No, I wouldn't.I'd like my papa to give me the pony which the man wants to sell out in the yard.'
'She's quite right, Fletcher,' said the squire, 'I'm much more likely to be able to buy them ponies as simple Frank Gresham than I should be if I had a lord's coronet to pay for.'
This was on a Saturday, and on the following Monday Mr Gresham drove the candidate over to Silverbridge and started him on his work of canvassing.Mr Du Boung had been busy ever since Mr Sprout's brilliant suggestion had been made, and Lopez had been in the field even before him.Each one of the candidates called at the house of every elector in the borough,--and every man in the borough was an elector.When they had been at work for four or five days each candidate assured the borough that he had already received promises of votes sufficient to insure his success, and each candidate was as anxious as ever,--nay was more rabidly anxious than ever,--to secure the promise of a single vote.Hints were made by honest citizens of the pleasure they would have in supporting this or that gentleman,--for the honest citizens assured one gentleman after the other of the satisfaction they had in seeing so all-sufficient a candidate in the borough,--if the smallest pecuniary help were given them, even a day's pay, so that their poor children might not be injured by their going to the poll.But the candidates and their agents were stern in their replies to such temptations.'That's a dodge of the rascal Sprout,' said Sprugeon to Mr Lopez.
'That's one of Sprout's men.If he could get half-a-crown from you it would be all up with us.' But tough Sprugeon called Sprout a rascal, he laid it in the same bait both for Du Boung and for Fletcher;--but laid it in vain.Everybody said that it was a very clean election.'A brewer standing, and the devil a glass of beer!' said one old elector who had remembered better things when the borough never heard of a contest.
On the third day of his canvass Arthur Fletcher with his gang of agents and followers behind him met Lopez with his gang in the street.It was probable that they would so meet, and Fletcher had resolved what he would do when such a meeting took place.He walked up to Lopez, and with a kindly smile offered his hand.
The two men, though they had never been intimate, had known each other, and Fletcher was determined to show that he would not quarrel with a man because that man had been his favoured rival.
In comparison with that other matter this affair of the candidature was of course trivial.But Lopez who had, as the reader may remember, made some threat about a horsewhip, had come to a resolution of a very different nature.He put his arms akimbo, resting his hands on his hips, and altogether declined to proffered civility.'You had better walk on,' he said, and then stood, scowling, on the spot till the other should pass by.
Fletcher looked at him for a moment, then bowed and passed on.
At least a dozen men saw what had taken place, and were aware that Mr Lopez had expressed his determination to quarrel personally with Mr Fletcher, in opposition to Mr Fletcher's expressed wish for amity.And before they had gone to bed that night all the dozen knew the reason why.Of course there was someone at Silverbridge clever enough to find out that Arthur Fletcher had been in love with Miss Wharton, but that Miss Wharton had lately been married to Mr Lopez.No doubt the incident added a pleasurable emotion to the excitement caused by the election at Silverbridge generally.A personal quarrel is attractive everywhere.The expectation of such an occurrence will bring together the whole House of Commons.And of course this quarrel was very attractive at Silverbridge.There were some Fletcherites and Lopezites in the quarrel; as there were able Du Boungites, who maintained that when gentlemen could not canvass without quarrelling in the streets they were manifestly unfit to represent such a borough as Silverbridge in Parliament;--and that therefore Mr Du Boung should be returned.
Mr Gresham was in the town that day, though not till after the occurrence, and Fletcher could not avoid speaking of it.'The man must be a cur,' said Gresham.
