On returning from our morning drive (which usually included an open-air meeting) we took luncheon, generally in the presence of various anaemic young men who represented local organs of public opinion, and who expected the long-suffering candidate to set forth his views between mouthfuls of chop and sips of sherry. I usually turned these over to Robin, who understood their ways; and he charmed them so wisely that even the relentless Cash was compelled to admit that our press notices might have been worse. Robin was a tower of strength. Indeed he and Dolly were my two chief lieutenants; Dilly and Dicky, as became a pair who had only been married a few months, proving but broken reeds. A week's electioneering proved sufficient for their requirements; and, declining flatly to "grin like a dog and run about the city"--Dilly's pithy summary of the art of canvassing--any longer, they left us ten days before polling-day to pay a country-house visit. But Robin was everywhere. He answered my letters and he interviewed reporters. He could keep a meeting in hand (pending my arrival from another) with such success that when I finally appeared upon the platform to take up the wondrous tale of my party's perfections, the audience were loth to let Robin go. In six days he acquired a knowledge of the wants, peculiarities, weaknesses, and traditions of my constituents which had occupied all my powers of concentration and absorption for six arduous years. He used to drop into his speeches little topical allusions and local "gags" which, though Greek to the uninitiated, never failed to produce a roar: and a political speaker who can unfailingly make his audience laugh with him--not at him--has gone far on the road to success. Once, at a meeting, when I was half-way through a speech to an unmistakably bored and rather hostile audience, Robin, who was sitting beside me, slipped a sheet of paper on to my table. The message on the paper, written large for me to read, said--_Compare Stridge to the Old Lady of Dippleton_. What the lady had done I did not know, neither had I time to inquire; but I took my secretary's advice, and, after pausing for a brief drink of water, concluded my sentence-- "--and I maintain, gentlemen, that my opponent, in advocating such a policy as that which he has had the--the--yes, the _effrontery_ to lay before a clear-thinking and broad-minded Stoneleigh audience last night, has shown himself to be no wiser in his generation, no better or more statesmanlike in character, than--than--what shall we say? than"--I glanced at the paper on the table--"the Old Lady of Dippleton!"