IN THE FIGHTING-LINE 75 



by reason of a debased variety of tennis shoes, noise- 

 less as those of the avenging deities, who are shod 

 with felt ; to our feverish eye her hand seemed to 

 be broad and flat from long chastisement of the 

 young. She regarded us and our bundle of pamphlets 

 with a strange, uncertain friendliness, and informed 

 us that her husband was up at Mr. Smith's Com- 

 mittee Room, adding that an agent's work was very 

 trying in this 'ot weather. Mr. Smith was not the 

 candidate in whose cause our conscience had driven 

 us to take the field, and the gentleman whom Mr. 

 Brown had sent us to convert was his agent. 



Our most immediate instinct was flight, our second 

 was to go back to say a few words to Mr. Brown, 

 whose sense of humour was obviously of a robust and 

 practical type ; finally we said we would go to Mr. 

 Smith's Committee Rooms, and make inquiries about 

 the other gentleman at the end of the road whom we 

 had been advised to visit. Wlien, subsequently, we 

 found that he also was one of Mr. Smith's agents, 

 we were compelled to a grudging admiration for Mr. 

 Brown. Determined to emulate in some humble 

 degree his peculiar form of humour, we conferred upon 

 the agent's wife a bundle of anti-Smith literature, and 

 retired in the direction smilingly indicated by her. 

 The door did not close ; we glanced back through the 

 railings, and saw the agent's wife in the act of opening 

 the pamphlets and discovering therein the cloven 

 hoof. It was a recompense for many days of toil. 



Throughout the remainder of that long and blazing 

 day, dining-rooms and drawing-rooms, offices and 

 consulting-rooms were our portion. The wax flower 

 and tlie glass shade heard our mature opinions about 

 the state of Ireland, our valuable views as to the most 

 crying needs of the Empire. It is painful to have to 

 state that in those days we were younger than we are 



