It has been my fortune to walk round
at the heels of half a dozen of them in different little
Canadian towns, watching the candidate try in vain to
brighten up his face at the glad sight of a party voter.
One, in particular, I remember. Nature had meant him to
be a sour man, a hard man, a man with but little joy in
the company of his fellows. Fate had made him a candidate
for the House of Commons. So he was doing his best to
belie his nature.
"Hullo, William!" he would call out as a man passed
driving a horse and buggy, "got the little sorrel out
for a spin, eh?"
Then he would turn to me and say in a low rasping voice--
"There goes about the biggest skunk in this whole
constituency."
A few minutes later he would wave his hand over a little
hedge in friendly salutation to a man working in a garden.
"Hullo, Jasper! That's a fine lot of corn you've got
there."
Jasper replied in a growl. And when we were well past
the house the candidate would say between his teeth--
"That's about the meanest whelp in the riding."
Our conversation all down the street was of that pattern.
"Good morning, Edward! Giving the potatoes a dose of
Paris green, eh?"
And in an undertone--
"I wish to Heaven he'd take a dose of it himself.
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