“And if such men as you do not get in, Frank, it will never be carried.  Grant is stupid—­thoroughly stupid.  I talked to him for four mortal hours on the subject, and made it plain to the meanest capacity, that though we wanted a representation of minorities, the minority in the House would faithfully represent the minority out of doors, and not be able to defeat the majorities, as he was convinced it would do.  I put it down in black and white—­proved it with figures.  Elsie and I made fancy voting-papers, and I acted as returning officer, and showed the thing as clear as day; but though he drank a bottle and a half of sherry during the process, he was just as wise at the end as at the beginning.  Now I don’t call myself at all clever, but when Frank explained the method of voting to me, I saw it all in a minute—­and you, Tom—­did not you, too? but then you are rather a genius.”

“It is as plain as a pikestaff,” said Tom Lowrie.

“Walter thinks, because he has not read very much, that we must think him stupid,” said Elsie, “when he really has the quickest apprehension of all sorts of things.”

“Dr. Grant will, perhaps, take up the meaning of Hare’s scheme when the newspapers have advocated it for years, and it has been familiar to all the people around him,” said Francis, “or he may vote for it without understanding it, when it becomes a popular cry.”

“But to have to stir such a dish of skimmed milk to honourable action!” said Brandon.  “Frank, you really must stand for our district.  I fancy McIntyre will go home by the time your partner comes back, so we will have a vacancy.  I will canvass for you, and so will Edgar.  It would be a credit to us to have a real British M.P. as our representative, and then you could push your grand idea, as you intended to have done in England, before love routed ambition.  As you say, the result has hitherto been a failure in the colonies, but the contest should not be abandoned.”

“I hear that the movement makes slow progress in Britain,” said Francis, “but still it makes progress.  It is too great a change there, and there are so many vested interests which consider such a reform would interfere with their prescriptive rights.  On the Continent it makes more way; and, perhaps, as my French friends say, the discovery may be first carried into practice there; but I had hopes of its success in the colonies.  There is so much less to disturb here that a change from exclusively local to general elections would not be difficult, if we could only make the idea familiar.  All we see in America, all we see in political matters here, only show how much easier it is to reform before abuses go too far.  I should very much like to try your district, Brandon, and will be very glad of your services when the time comes; and so I should feel that my work had been postponed, but not altogether given up.”

“If we could carry the measure by a Coup de main in any one of the colonies, and bring it into working, the whole world would be the better for it,” said Brandon.