All this involved, of course, active exertion, as well as concentration of thought and study, and the very servants in the house could see he was absorbed in thought as he never had been before. Even his walks about the grounds were less frequent than before, for the things that used formerly to interest him were passed unheeded by, as with face to the ground he appeared to be thinking out some problem or composing a speech. In his room piles of papers littered the floor, and the preparations for speeches must have been enormous for one not accustomed to this kind of work. One night he had sat up late preparing a speech, making cuttings and pasting them together to be ready for reference. In order that they might be properly dried, he left them on the fender overnight, and when the girl came in in the morning to put on the fire, thinking it was a lot of wastepaper she used it for that purpose. Of course the Colonel made inquiries about his papers, and for some time there was great consternation among the servants when it was known what had happened, and the admission had to be made that they had been destroyed. It was very different with him, however. He laughed the matter over, and told the poor girl never to mind, as it was more than likely it would end in smoke at any rate! {118} By the end of March 1891 Colonel Wauchope had a second time visited the whole of the constituency, or, as a Radical paper put it, 'had been overhauling the preserves of the Grand Old Man,' but admitting frankly, at the same time, that 'he seemed everywhere to be received with marked attention and respect.' [Sidenote: An eventful night] One of the largest of these meetings, held in Dalkeith on 31st January, gave him an opportunity of twitting the Liberals upon their alliance with Mr. Parnell, and upon the exposure made to the country by his having a bag of lime thrown in his face, 'not by an alien Saxon, but by a Paddy belonging to the soil, in the county of Kilkenny, in the very midst of dear old Ireland.' The great issue, he said, now before the country has been wonderfully cleared up, and he strongly believed that if the people of this country could have the truth put before them, there would be no more talk of Home Rule--referring, of course, to the scandal connected with the Irish leader's temporary retirement from political life by recent exposures in the Divorce Court. These peregrinations through the county brought Colonel Wauchope in contact with all classes of people. The very reporters, whose duty it was to follow him and report his speeches, he made friends of, and by all who had dealings with him he was regarded as the most genial and generous-minded of political candidates. As one of them said, 'he was affability itself, and gave the impression of regarding the reporters as his personal friends.' One of these gentlemen has given us the following graphic account of an electioneering visit to one of the outlying parishes in the county:--