"I'm a man of my word--no one can say I ever broke it in earnest; and as for a straightforward bit o' business like this, I say, I'm your man--so here's my hand."... "Don't _that_ look rather like business?" inquired M'Do'em, in a whisper, after they had lightly stepped away.--"But come along!"... After another similar scene, the two returned to the Hare and Hounds, and the matter was satisfactorily settled between Crafty and M'Do'em--one hundred down, and the rest on the morning after the election. He was to _poll for Titmouse_, and that, too, early in the day; and be as conspicuous and active as possible in his exertions in behalf of that gentleman--to appear, in short, one of his most stanch and confidential supporters. Whether Lord De la Zouch or his son would have sanctioned such conduct as this, had they had an inkling of it, I leave to the reader to conjecture: but Crafty was easy about the matter--'t was only, in _his_ opinion, "manœuvring;" and all weapons are fair against a burglar or highwayman; all devices against a swindler. M'Do'em gave Crafty a list of nine voters at Grilston who had received five pounds a-piece; and enabled him to discover a case of wholesale _treating_, brought home to one of the leading members of Mr. Titmouse's committee. Well, this worthy capped all his honorable services by hurrying in to Gammon, some quarter of an hour after he had received the second anonymous letter, and with a perfect appearance of consternation, after carefully shutting the door and eying the window, faltered that all was going wrong--that traitors were in the camp; that Lord De la Zouch had _bought every man of the Quaint Club two days before at thirty pounds a-head_! half already paid down, the rest to be paid on the morning of the _fifteenth day after Parliament should have met_--(M'Do'em said he did not know what that meant, but Gammon was more influenced and alarmed by it than by anything else that had happened;) that _Ben Bran was playing false_, having received a large sum--though how much M'Do'em had not yet learned--as head-money from Lord De la Zouch; and that, if one single farthing were after that moment paid or promised to any single member of the club, either by Mr. Titmouse, or any one on his behalf, they were all delivered, bound hand and foot, into the power of Lord De la Zouch, and at his mercy. That so daring and yet artful was Lord De la Zouch, that his agents had attempted to tamper with even HIM, M'Do'em! but so as to afford him not the least hold of them. Moreover, he knew a fellow-townsman who would, despite all his promises to the Liberal candidate, poll for Delamere; but nothing should induce him, M'Do'em, to disclose the name of that person, on account of the peculiar way in which he, M'Do'em, had come to know the fact. On hearing all this, Gammon calmly made up his mind for the worst; and immediately resolved to close all further negotiations with the Quaint Club.