their uproar, which it _redoubled_. How vain the attempt! How ridiculous the challenge! Confident of his lungs, he smiled good-humoredly at the hissing and bellowing mass before him, and for nearly half an hour persevered in his attempts to make himself heard. At length, however, without his having in the slightest degree succeeded, his pertinacity began to irritate the crowd who, in fact, felt themselves being _bullied_; and _that_ no crowd, that ever I saw, or heard of, can bear for one instant; and _what is one against so many_? Hundreds of fists were held up and shaken at him. A missile of some sort or another was flung at him, though it missed him; and then the returning officer advised him to desist from his attempts, lest mischief should ensue; on which he shouted at the top of his voice, "I second Mr. Delamere!" and, amid immense groaning and hissing, replaced his hat on his head, thereby owning himself vanquished; which the mob also perceiving, they burst into loud and long-continued laughter. "Now, Mr. Titmouse!" said the returning officer, addressing that gentleman: who on hearing the words, turned as white as a sheet, and felt very much disposed to be sick. He pulled out of his coat-pocket a well-worn little roll of paper, on which was the speech which Mr. Gammon had prepared for him, as I have already intimated; and with a shaking hand he unrolled it, casting at its contents a glance--momentary and despairing. What then would that little fool have given for memory, voice, and manner enough to "speak the speech that had been set down for him!" He cast a dismal look over his shoulder at Mr. Gammon, and took off his hat--Sir Harkaway clapping him on the back, exclaiming, "Now for't, lad--have at 'em, and away--never fear!" The moment that he stood bareheaded, and prepared to address the writhing mass of faces before him, he was greeted with a prodigious shout, while hats were some of them waved, and others flung into the air. It was, indeed, several minutes before the uproar abated in the least. With fearful rapidity, however, every species of noise and interruption ceased--and a deadly silence prevailed. The sea of eager excited faces--all turned towards _him_--was a spectacle which might for a moment have shaken the nerves of even a _man_--had he been "unaccustomed to public speaking." The speech, which--brief and simple though it was--he had never been able to make his own, even after copying it out half-a-dozen times, and trying to learn it off for an hour or two daily during the preceding fortnight, he had now utterly forgotten; and he would have given a hundred pounds to retire at once from the contest, or sink unperceived under the floor of the hustings. "Begin! begin!" whispered Gammon, earnestly. "Ya--a--s--but--what shall I say?" stammered Titmouse. "Your speech"--answered Gammon, impatiently. "I--I--'pon my--soul--I've--forgot every word of it!" "Then _read_ it," said Gammon, in a furious whisper--