“How do you do?” said Perkins, returning the salutation courteously, wondering the while as to what might be the cause of this sudden change of height.

“Oi’m well—­which is nothin’ new to me,” replied the other.  “Ut sheems to me,” he continued, “thot youse resimbles thot smart young felly Perkins, the Mayor of Dumfries Corners—­not!”

Perkins laughed.  The sting of defeat had lost its power to annoy, and his experience had become merely one of a thousand other nightmares of the past.

“Do I?” he replied, resolving not to confess his identity, for the moment at least.

“Only thinner,” chuckled the laborer, shrinking up again; and Perkins now saw that the legs of his new acquaintance were of an abnormally unequal length, which forced him every time he shifted his weight from one foot to the other to change his apparent height to a startling degree.  “An’ a gude dale thinner,” he repeated.  “There’s nothin’ loike polithical exersoize to take off th’ flesh, parthicularly when ye miss ut.”

“I fancy you are right,” said Perkins.  “I never met Mr. Perkins—­that is, face to face—­myself.  Do you know him?”

The Irishman threw his head back and laughed.

“Well,” he said, “oi’m not wan uv his pershonal fri’nds.  But oi know um when oi see um,” and he looked Thaddeus straight in the eye as he grew tall again.

“I’m sure it is Perkins’s loss,” returned Thaddeus, “that you are not a personal friend of his.”

“It was,” said the Irishman.  “My name is Finn,” he added, with an air which seemed to assume that Perkins would begin to tremble at the dreaded word; but Perkins did not tremble.  He merely replied,

“A very good name, Mr. Finn.”

“Oi t’ink so,” assented Mr. Finn.  “Ut’s better nor Dinnis, me young fri’nd.”

Perkins assented to this proposition as though it was merely general, and had no particular application to the affairs of the moment.  “I suppose, Mr. Finn,” he observed, shortly, “that you were one of the earnest workers in the late campaign for Mr. Perkins?”

“Was he elicted?” asked Finn, scornfully.

“I believe not,” began Thaddeus.  “But—­”

“Thot’s me answer to your quistion, sorr,” said Finn, with dignity.  “He’d ‘a’ had lamps befoor his house now, sorr, if he hadn’t been gay wid his front dure.”

“Oh—­he was gay with his front door, was he?” asked Perkins.

“He was thot, an’ not ony too careful uv his windy-shades,” replied Finn.

Perkins looked at him inquiringly.

“Givin’ me, Mike Finn, song an’ dance about not bein’ home, wid me fri’nds outside on the lawn watchin’ him troo de windy, laffin’ loike a hayeny.”

“Excuse me—­like a what?” said Thaddeus.

“A hayeny,” repeated Mr. Finn.  “Wan o’ thim woild bastes as laffs at nothin’ much.  ‘Is he home?’ sez oi.  ‘Are yees a pershonal fri’nd?’ says the gurl.  ‘Oi’m not,’ sez oi.  ‘He ain’t home,’ says the gurl.  ’Whin’ll he be back?’ says oi.  ‘Niver,’ says she, shlammin’ the dure in me face; and Mike Finn wid a certifikut uv election for um in his pocket!”