following day; and the more people he saw--(and he saw no end of new faces,--in fact, they appeared to him, in his puzzled condition, to spring out of the earth--though the fact was they came in fresh shoals by the packet every morning, noon, and night, from town,)--the more people he saw, the more he was told that Gravesend was the place wherein he ought to publish "The Intellectual Lever:" that _there_ he could lift all Kent, and get himself returned,--the conclusion, he thought, ought to be,--for any Kentish borough _he chose_ to represent! "Well," said Mr. Mortimer to himself, as he was dressing on the fourth morning of his stay in Gravesend: "it _is_ strange--certainly." Mr. Mortimer would have said more to himself,--but he just then happened to be glancing down into the street, as he was tying his neckerchief, and seeing an omnibus going by,--one of the regular and frequent conveyances from Gravesend to Chatham,--that run the eight miles with passengers,--he read upon one of its sides--"Meets conveyances to MAIDSTONE." "Why, what in the world has possessed me, all this time?" exclaimed Mr. Mortimer, aloud, although he was alone,--"what in the world has possessed me, that I have been going round Kent, and calling at every little hole without thinking of Maidstone,--the county town, where the assizes are held,--in the very core and centre of the shire?" There was no one to answer Mr. Mortimer,--but he was down stairs in another minute,--besought the landlord to stop the omnibus,--paid his bill,--and set off, breakfastless, for Maidstone, by way of Chatham. Mr. Mortimer was resolved he would have his own unbiassed judgment this time, and so called on no one at Chatham or Rochester. Maidstone--finished Mr. Mortimer! A _new_ newspaper for Kent?--why, every one assured him it was of all schemes the most foolish. The "Maidstone Gazette," on the Whig side, was edited by Mr. Whiting, a gentleman of real talent, swarmed with advertisements, and had a good circulation: the "Maidstone Journal," on the Conservative side, was rising into favour and patronage, with its own party: these were the two _real_ representatives of Kent: there was no room for another paper: fools might speculate, in any corner, to please knaves, and throw their money away: there was no full growth of radicalism, as in the manufacturing districts: London was so near at hand that its daily papers and literary periodicals supplied every want:--in short, every man of any pretensions to common sense assured Mr. Mortimer, if he desired to throw away his fortune, his projected "lever" was the very instrument to enable him to throw it away effectually,--if he chose Kent for the "fulcrum!"