"Tolerably well, but not perfectly secure. The Clique has done its very best, but at the same time there is undeniably a growing feeling against it. Many people grumble about its dominion, and are fools enough to say that they have a right to think for themselves."
"Could you not circulate a report that Pozzlethwaite is the man of the Clique?"
"The idea is ingenious, but I fear it would hardly work. Dreepdaily is well known to be the headquarters of the confederation, and the name of Provost Binkie is inseparably connected with it."
"By the way, M'Corkindale, it struck me that you looked rather sweet upon Miss Binkie last evening."
"I did. In fact I popped the question," replied Robert calmly.
"Conditionally. If we gain the election, she becomes Mrs M'Corkindale--if we lose, I suppose I shall have to return to Glasgow in a state of celibacy."
"A curious contract, certainly! Well, Bob, since your success is involved in mine, we must fight a desperate battle."
"I wish, though, that Mr Sholto Douglas had been kind enough to keep out of the way," observed M'Corkindale.
The morning of the day appointed for the nomination dawned upon the people of Dreepdaily with more than usual splendour. For once, there was no mist upon the surrounding hills, and the sky was clear as sapphire. I rose early to study my speech, which had received the finishing touches from M'Corkindale on the evening before; and I flatter myself it was as pretty a piece of Whig rhetoric as ever was spouted from a hustings. Toddy Tam, indeed, had objected, upon seeing a draft, that "there was nae banes intil't;" but the political economist was considered by the Committee a superior authority on such subjects to Gills. After having carefully conned it over, I went down-stairs, where the whole party were already assembled. A large blue and yellow flag, with the inscription, "DUNSHUNNER AND THE GOOD CAUSE!" was hung out from the window, to the intense delight of a gang of urchins, who testified to the popularity of the candidate by ceaseless vociferation to "pour out." The wall opposite, however, bore some memoranda of an opposite tendency, for I could see some large placards, newly pasted up, on which the words, "ELECTORS OF DREEPDAILY! YOU ARE SOLD BY THE CLIQUE!" were conspicuous in enormous capitals. I heard, too, something like a ballad chanted, in which my name seemed to be coupled, irreverently, with that of the independent Gills.