fellow,' he said. 'I can spare a quarter of an hour, and my house is
two minutes off. I'll see you clothed and fed and snug in bed.
Where's your kit, by the way? Is it in the burn along with the car?'

'It's in my pocket,' I said, brandishing a toothbrush. 'I'm a
Colonial and travel light.'

'A Colonial,' he cried. 'By Gad, you're the very man I've been
praying for. Are you by any blessed chance a Free Trader?'

'I am,' said I, without the foggiest notion of what he meant.

He patted my shoulder and hurried me into his car. Three minutes
later we drew up before a comfortable-looking shooting box set
among pine-trees, and he ushered me indoors. He took me first to a
bedroom and flung half a dozen of his suits before me, for my own
had been pretty well reduced to rags. I selected a loose blue serge,
which differed most conspicuously from my former garments, and
borrowed a linen collar. Then he haled me to the dining-room,
where the remnants of a meal stood on the table, and announced
that I had just five minutes to feed. 'You can take a snack in your
pocket, and we'll have supper when we get back. I've got to be at
the Masonic Hall at eight o'clock, or my agent will comb my hair.'

I had a cup of coffee and some cold ham, while he yarned away
on the hearth-rug.

'You find me in the deuce of a mess, Mr--by-the-by, you
haven't told me your name. Twisdon? Any relation of old Tommy
Twisdon of the Sixtieth? No? Well, you see I'm Liberal Candidate