The next morning, when I was preparing for my early start by train, the proprietor of the hotel came to have a chat with me, and I explained to him the reason why I had chosen his house in preference to Brofft's. "Quite right, sir!" he exclaimed with great heartiness. "Everybody says the same thing. Take my word for it, sir, Brofft is a thief." At that moment my bill was handed to me. It was more extortionate than anything I had known at Brofft's. "That is as it may be." I said, turning to the landlord, "but I think you will agree with me that if Brofft is a thief, he is not the only one in Bucharest." Things, I hope, have changed since then. If they have not done so I am sorry for the tourist who unwittingly includes Bucharest in the round of the holiday vacation. From Bucharest to London, and thence to Leeds, I came practically without a break, and on reaching my own home once more, in the dead of the night, I had the joy of knowing that the crisis of my daughter's illness was passed, and that she was spared to me. Here ends the chronicle of my misfortunes during the year 1880. It is but a trivial tale, and one that, I fear, will have small interest for the reader, but I have ventured to tell it as an illustration of the adage that troubles never come singly. In the quarter of a century that has elapsed since then I have not had to encounter such a series of misfortunes as came upon me in the first nine months of that ill-omened year. CHAPTER XIII. THE GENERAL ELECTION OF 1880. Mr. Gladstone's Position in 1879--His Decision to Contest Midlothian--How he came to be Adopted by the Leeds Liberals--The Conversation Club--A Visit from John Morley--The Dissolution of 1880--Lecture on Mr. Gladstone--His Triumphant Return for Leeds--His Election for Midlothian--Mr. Herbert Gladstone Adopted as his Successor at Leeds--Mr. Gladstone's Visit to Leeds in 1881--A Fiasco Narrowly Avoided--A Wonderful Mass Meeting--Mr. Gladstone's Collapse and Recovery--My Introduction to Him--An Excursion to Tunis--"The Land of the Bey"--Mr. A. M. Broadley's Prophecies--Howard Payne's Grave--A Series of Coincidences.