_4, Stone Street, Billsbury, June 10._

[Illustration: "I will give any security you like."]

Sir,--I venture to appeal to your generosity in a matter which I am
sure you will recognise to be of the highest importance. My services
to the Conservative Party in Billsbury are well-known. I can safely
say that no man has, during the last ten years, worked harder than I
have to promote Conservative interests, and for a smaller reward. My
exertions at the last election brought on a violent attack of malarial
fever, which laid me up for some months, and from which I still
suffer. The shaky character of my hand-writing attests the sufferings
I have gone through, and the shattered condition of my bodily health
at the present moment. I lost my situation as head-clerk in the Export
Department of the Ironmongers' Association, and found myself, at the
age of forty, compelled to begin life again with a wife and three
children. Everything I have turned my hand to has failed, and I am in
dire want. May I ask you, under these circumstances, to be so good
as to advance me £500 for a few months. I will give any security you
like. Perhaps I might repay some part of the loan by doing work for
you during the election. This must be a small matter to a wealthy
and generous man like you. To me it is a matter of life and death.
Anxiously awaiting your early and favourable reply, and begging you to
keep this application a secret,

I remain, Sir, Yours, faithfully, HENRY PIDGIN.

That sounded heart-breaking, but I happened to know that Mr. PIDGIN's
"malarial fever" was nothing but _delirium tremens_, brought on by
a prolonged course of drunkenness. Hence his shaky handwriting, &c.