_Anthelia._ Do you mean to say, Sir Telegraph, that I am old enough to be Mr. Forester’s mother? _Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ No, no; that is no part of the comparison; but we are the ambassadors of Agamemnon (videlicet, Mr. Fax, whom we left very busily arranging the urns, not of lots by the bye, but of tea and coffee); here is old Phoenix on one side of me, and Ajax on the other. _Mr. Forester._ And you of course are the wise Ulysses. _Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ There the simile fails again. _Comparatio non urgenda_, as I think Heyne used to say, before I was laughed out of reading at College. _Mr. Forester._ You should have found me too, if you call me Achilles, solacing my mind with music, φρενα τερπομενον φορμιγγι λιγειῃ; but, to make amends for the deficiency, you have brought me a musical Ajax. _Sir Telegraph Paxarett._ You have no reason to wish even for the golden lyre of my old friend Pindar himself: you have been listening to the music of the winds and the waters, and to what is more than music, the voice of Miss Melincourt. _Mr. Hippy._ And there is a very pretty concert waiting for you at the inn—the tinkling of cups and spoons, and the divine song of the tea-urn. CHAPTER XXI THE CITY OF NOVOTE On the evening of the tenth day the barouche rattled triumphantly into the large and populous city of Novote, which was situated at a short distance from the ancient and honourable borough of Onevote. The city contained fifty thousand inhabitants, and had no representative in the Honourable House, the deficiency being virtually supplied by the two members for Onevote; who, having no affairs to attend to for the borough, or rather the burgess, that did return them, were supposed to have more leisure for those of the city which did not; a system somewhat analogous to that which the learned author of _Hermes_ calls _a method of supply by negation_. Sir Oran signalised his own entrance by playing on his French horn, _See the conquering hero comes!_ Bells were ringing, ale was flowing, mobs were huzzaing, and it seemed as if the inhabitants of the large and populous city were satisfied of the truth of the admirable doctrine, that the positive representation of one individual is a virtual representation of fifty thousand. They found afterwards that all this festivity had been set in motion by Sir Oran’s brother candidate, Simon Sarcastic, Esq., to whom we shall shortly introduce our readers.