At Wortham came more trouble. Once more there was the ominous shriek. The rear off-side inner tube had been blown into a rent in the inner canvas of the outer cover; it was clean gone, and so, unfortunately, was the mechanic. Cheerfully philosophical as ever, Mr. Johnson, with such help as the bystanders and I could give him, addressed himself to the task of fitting the wheel for the road again and, apart from the trouble and inconvenience to him, of which he made light for our sake, the experience was even positively pleasant in its incidents. Bystanders were many. Our little disaster had come to us half-way on the road passing through a village green, very spacious, fringed on the left with stray cottages, of which one turned out to be the post office. Village children thronged round the disabled car in great numbers, light-haired and rosy-faced children, all of them wearing the yellow favours of the Liberal candidate. Were we not in the middle of the Eye constituency, the bye-election in which, coming shortly after the General Election, was regarded with exceptional interest by the public? Was not this the election of elections in which, to judge from the public press, the issue lay not between two mere men, but between Lady Mary Hamilton and another lady. And the result was due that day. The district was at least warmly interested as the general public--it is not always so--and the children were in a fever of childish excitement. They were "yellow" down to the very babies in arms; they hooted in shrill and childish derision whenever a carriage passed with blue favours, as some did, the occupants themselves looking blue in another sense. The most hardened Tory found it as impossible to be annoyed at their enthusiasm as to regard their opinions seriously. They were too eager, too delightful, too healthy. Nobody could have been angry with them. Further than that, they struck us all as being exceptionally bright and intelligent, and the keen interest with which they listened to a boy in his shirt-sleeves, not much older than some of them, but emancipated from school and now a wage-earning creature, who had attended some village meeting, was entirely charming. A man or two came up and proffered help, which was accepted. A Suffolk constable arrived on a bicycle and, seeming to have plenty of time to spare, remained to talk and to help me in expelling the air from the discarded tube, and in packing it into its bag for future treatment; and the children were round us all the time. Suddenly there was a shout, "The talleygram's come!" and a stampede across the green to the post office. In a minute or two they were all back, yelling in glee, "Pearson's in!" and at least one stubborn Tory was not half so sorry as he ought to have been. The Tory cause in the then Parliament was past praying for in any event; a Liberal vote more or less really seemed hardly to matter; the disappointment of those children at the failure of the Liberal candidate,