It is house-to-house visitation that is the true secret now. As far as I carried it out I was successful, though I did not invariably embrace the wife of the voter or kiss the babies. The worst of it is, it takes so much time. Now and then your friend is supernaturally wise. You must stop and hear all he has to say, or you make him an enemy. Some people—and I think they were right—seemed to think a candidate has no business to canvass electors at all. One highly respectable voter seemed really angry as he told me, with a severity worthy of a judge about to sentence a poor wretch to hanging, it was quite needless for me to call, that he was not going to disgrace his Baptist principles. Passing a corner public one Saturday I was met with a friendly recognition. “We’re all going to oblige you, Sir,” said the spokesman of the party, in a tone indicating that either he had not taken the Temperance pledge, or that he was somewhat lax in his observance of it, “and now you must oblige us will you?” Him I left a sadder and a wiser man, as I had to explain that the trifling little favour he sought at my hands might invalidate my election. One female in a Peabody Building was hurt because I had in my haste given a postman’s rap at the door, instead of one more in use in genteel society. In many a model lodging-house I found a jolly widow, who, in answer to my appeal if there were any gentlemen, seemed to intimate that the male sex were held in no particular favour. The Conservative female was, as a rule, rather hard and sarcastic, and I was glad to beat a retreat, as she gave me to understand that she was not to be deceived by anything I might say, and that she should take care how her husband voted. Now and then I was favoured with a dissertation on the evil of party, but I could always cut that short by the remark, “Oh, I see you are going to vote for the Conservative candidate!”—a remark which led to a confession that in reality such was the case. The newly enfranchised seemed proud of their privilege. It was not from them I got the reply which I often heard where I should have least expected it, “Oh, I never interfere in politics.” People who had fads were a great bore. One man would not vote for me because I was not sound on the Sunday question; others who were of the same political opinions as myself would not support me because I laughed at their pet theories. But the great drawback was that I had come forward without leave from the party chiefs, and hence their toadies, lay or clerical, sternly held aloof. Barely was I treated uncourteously, except when my declaration that I was a Radical led to an intimation on the part of the voter that the sooner I cleared out the better.