Harriet did not do very much canvassing on her own account. She hadn’t the right grinding touch, which is either very bluff and “Come-along-be-a-good-dog!”-ish, or silkily insidious and appealing. Her request for a vote was apt to sound more like a County Court judgment, so she prudently left the work to her backers. Wiggie said little, but then Wiggie’s very presence smoothed the wrinkles out of the atmosphere and demoralised resistance; and Dandy sat behind, ready to hand out fresh suggestions when Hamer came to a halt. As for Stubbs, he had but one argument, the inevitable “In the family. Always in the family!” but it carried weight; and it seemed as if, in reminding others of the family honour, he was reminded of his own, for he certainly pulled himself together during this fateful time. But still it was Hamer who was the real canvassing success. These local elections are carried largely on the women, and Hamer went down with the women all the way. He turned up each evening at Wild Duck with his reports, triumphant over the certainties, miserable about the failures, and worried to death over the doubtfuls. Wiggie often came with him, and on the first occasion was so delighted with Harriet’s dwelling that he couldn’t be made to attend to business. Wild Duck captured him from the start. While Hamer waved a pencil over the lists, he wandered round the room, worshipping the silhouette and the carriage-whip and the beer-barrel, and was positively childish about the clover-leaf into which Grandfather Knewstubb had squeezed the Lord’s Prayer. He sank happily into the comfortable rocker pulled close to the glowing bars, cuddling the kitten in his arm, and watched the colours floating in the lustres until Harriet’s voice in the background--“Oh, _he’s_ no good! Let him slack”--brought him to his feet as if a live coal had sprung at him. She looked a trifle ashamed at his earnest apology, and, after a minute or two, muttered a word of excuse and went to fetch him a glass of new milk from the dairy; and when, on the following day, she found him at the gate with a message, she actually condescended to show him round the buildings. He looked regretfully behind him as he turned back into the road. “I’ve always known there was a place like this somewhere,” he said, “ever since I was top angel in St. Somebody-Something’s choir, but I hardly believed I should ever really find it. It’s so beautifully restful, it almost makes me glad to be tired. I love Watters, and it’s very patient with me, but after all it only kind of shakes hands, whereas Wild Duck opens its arms and takes you on its knee. You won’t sell it, I suppose? You should have what you wanted for it. You’re a very honest person, I know. I wouldn’t haggle a farthing.”