"You are so generous, Monsieur Jansoulet, that I can do no less than point out to you Sieur Bornalinco (Ange-Marie) as a traitor who has gone over to your enemies; I have a very different story to tell of his cousin Bornalinco (Louis-Thomas), who is devoted to the good cause," etc. Or else: "Monsieur Jansoulet, I fear that your election will be badly managed and will come to nothing if you continue to employ Castirla (Josue) of the canton of Odessa, while his kinsman, Luciani, is the very man you need." Although he finally gave up reading such missives, the poor candidate was shaken by all those doubts, by all those passions, being caught in a network of petty intrigues, his mind full of terror and distrust, anxious, excited, nervous, feeling keenly the truth of the Corsican proverb: "If you are very ill-disposed to your enemy, pray that he may have an election in his family." We can imagine that the check-book and the three great drawers in the mahogany commode were not spared by that cloud of devouring locusts that swooped down upon "Moussiou Jansoulet's" salons. Nothing could be more comical than the overbearing way in which those worthy islanders negotiated their loans, abruptly and with an air of defiance. And yet they were not the most terrible, except in the matter of boxes of cigars, which vanished in their pockets so rapidly as to make one think they proposed to open a _Civette_ on their return to the island. But just as wounds grow red and inflamed on very hot days, so the election had caused an amazing recrudescence in the systematic pillage that reigned in the house. The expenses of advertising were considerable: Moessard's articles, sent to Corsica in packages of twenty thousand, thirty thousand copies, with portraits, biographies, pamphlets, all the printed clamor that it is possible to raise around a name. And then there was no diminution in the ordinary consumption of the panting pumps established around the reservoir of millions. On one side the Work of Bethlehem, a powerful machine, pumping at regular intervals, with tremendous energy; the _Caisse Territoriale_, with marvellous power of suction, indefatigable in its operation, with triple and quadruple action, of several thousand horse-power; and the Schwalbach pump, and the Bois-l'Hery pump, and how many more; some of enormous size, making a great noise, with audacious pistons, others more quiet and reserved, with tiny valves, bearings skilfully oiled--toy-pumps as delicately constructed as the probosces of insects whose thirst causes stings, and which deposit poison on the spot from which they suck their life; but all working with the same unanimity, and fatally certain to cause, if not an absolute drought, at all events a serious lowering of the level.