As Walter Joyce had not been to Helmingham, the village folk, who in their old-fashioned way were oddly punctilious, thought it a point of etiquette not to call upon him, though such as were politically of his way of thinking took care to let him know he might reckon on their support; and of all the people whom Walter had been in the habit of seeing almost daily in the village, Jack Forman, the ne'er-do-weel, was the only one who came over expressly to Brocksopp for the purpose of visiting his old friend. It was not so much friendship as constant thirst that prompted Jack's visit; he had been in the habit of looking on elections as institutions for the gratuitous supply of ale and spirits, extending more or less over the term of a month, to all who chose to ask for them, and hitherto he had been greatly disappointed in not finding his name on the free list of the Helmingham taverns. So it was well worth Jack's while to spend a day in staggering over to Brocksopp, and on his arrival he met with a very kind reception from Walter, sufficiently kind to enable him to bear up against the black looks and ill-suppressed growls of Mr. South, who, in his capacity of clerk to the magistrates, only knew Jack as a bit of a poacher, and a great deal of a drunkard. Immediately on his arrival in Brocksopp, and after one or two preliminary interviews with Mr. South, who, as he imagined, had forgotten all about him, and was much struck by his knowledge of neighbouring persons and localities, Joyce proceeded with his canvass, and after a very brief experience felt that Mr. Harrington had not taken too rose-coloured a view of his chance of success. Although to most of the electors of Brocksopp he was personally unknown, and though such as remembered his father held him in recollection only as a sour, cross-grained man, with a leaning towards "Methodee" and a suspicion of avarice, the fact that Walter was not an entire stranger had great influence with many of the electors, and his appearance and manner won him troops of friends. They liked his frank face and hearty demeanour, they felt that he was eminently "thorough," the lack of which quality had been the chief ground of complaint against young Bokenham, and they delighted in his lucid argument and terse way of laying a question before them and driving it home to their understanding. In this he had the advantage of his opponent; and many waverers, with undefined political opinions, who attended the public meetings of both parties, were won over to Joyce's side by the applause with which his speeches were received, and by the feeling that a man who could produce such an effect on his hearers must necessarily be a clever man, and the right person to be sent by them to Parliament. The fact was allowed even by his opponents. Mr. Teesdale wrote up to Mr. Gould that things were anything but bright, that the new man was amazingly popular, and quite young, which was not