"The Big Wind" started gracefully--he always did that, and the House listened indulgently while he patted every one on the back--not forgetting himself. This occupied some fifteen minutes, during which the reporters began to ask one another in whispers, "Why doesn't he get going?" They were beginning to wonder if he would ever get going when he said, "And now, Mr. Speaker, as to the budget." There was a suppressed "Ah!" in the press gallery, followed by a surprised "Oh!" when "The Big Wind" averred that "budgets" had been known since the world began. He delved into a pile of manuscript, and made some allusion to the Book of Genesis--without giving any one the slightest idea of what he was talking about. He paid a great deal of attention to Genesis, he stayed with it for an hour or so, in fact. People began to leave the galleries, members left the chamber to find solace in the smoking-room or the library. The managing editor of the chief leading government organ, who had condescended to take a seat in the press gallery, told the three reporters representing the paper to cut the speech to one column, and himself returned to his office. An hour later this editor telephoned to the press gallery and asked one of his reporters, "Say, where is that chump now?" "Well," answered the reporter, "he's just figuring on leading the children of Israel into the promised land." "It's a pity the Egyptians couldn't kill him," shouted the editor; "cut him down to half a column." And "The Big Wind" went on blowing. At six o'clock he had left the children of Israel to their fate, and was grappling with the Norman invasion of England. The House adjourned for dinner then, and it is on record that as they walked the corridor to the dining-room, a member of the cabinet asked the premier, "Where in the name of all we stand for is this fellow going to land?" that the premier, without even the trace of a blush, answered in two words, and that one of them rhymed with "well." "The Big Wind" resumed his address at eight o'clock at night and concluded it at eleven, with a few playful allusions to the Peninsular War and an expression of regret that time did not permit of his dealing with other matters no less important. And this was the man that Mid-Toronto was asked to return again because his own party was afraid to antagonise him, and the opposition felt that they hadn't a ghost of show to carry a riding that for twenty years had beaten their candidates by large majorities. It looked indeed as though "The Big Wind" might be elected by acclamation. Two weeks before the official nomination, Whimple, himself a dabbler in politics and a supporter of the government, heard, with other rumours, that an independent candidate would be in the field in Mid-Toronto, and the next morning the rumours were declared, by no less a personage than William Adolphus Turnpike, to have truth as their foundation.