The end of his story is a mingling of tragedy and comedy. He sold his paper. During the years in which he had conducted it he always “lived over the shop.” He could never have spent a fourth part of his net profits, and the balance had been well and luckily invested. When he received the purchase money for the _Gazette_ and left Southampton Street, he was worth considerably over £100,000. When he crossed the threshold of his old offices his astuteness and his luck seem to have deserted him. He bought a brewery in St. Albans, where he had a house. From the first this venture was foredoomed to failure. He became the prospective Unionist candidate for the division. But Captain Middleton and the Central Office would have nothing to do with him, and ran a candidate of their own against him. Bingham-Cox persisted, and actually went to the poll. At this period I became more intimately associated with the eccentric man. I made some speeches for him, and even canvassed the independent electors. More than once during the campaign I thought it my duty to inform him that his methods, should he be elected, must insure his being unseated on petition. He only bared his teeth at the suggestion. He was quite sure of winning, and he was equally sure that there would be no petition. One of my trials in accompanying him was being obliged to drive about with him in a little village cart, painted a vivid green, and drawn by a big black donkey. The candidate, with his swarthy face, grizzly beard, and fierce expression, might have been the _avant-courier_ of some travelling show. The little villagers evidently accepted him as something of the sort, and accompanied the strange vehicle and its grinning occupant in and out of their hamlets with joyful “whoops.” He was badly beaten at the polls. I don’t believe that even the well-bribed employés in the brewery voted for him. Then the brewery itself went smash, and Bingham-Cox returned to Southampton Street (the new owners of the paper having found less expensive premises), and recommenced life as a newspaper proprietor.