After all, although the thought of it shocked me at first, the price I was asked to pay was not so very heavy, merely one of the usual election platform formulas, whereby the candidate binds himself to support all sorts of things in which he has little or no beliefs.  Already I was half committed to this anti-vaccination crusade, and, if I took a step or two farther in it, what did it matter?  One crank more added to the great army of British enthusiasts could make little difference in the scheme of things.

If ever a man went through a “psychological moment” in this hour I was that man.  The struggle was short and sharp, but it ended as might be expected in the case of one of my history and character.  Could I have foreseen the dreadful issues which hung upon my decision, I believe that rather than speak it, for the second time in my life I would have sought the solace to be found in the phials of my medicine chest.  But I did not foresee them, I thought only of myself, of my own hopes, fears and ambitions, forgetting that no man can live to himself alone, and that his every deed must act and re-act upon others until humanity ceases to exist.

“Well,” said Mr. Strong after a two or three minutes’ pause, during which these thoughts were wrestling in my mind.

“Well,” I answered, “as you elegantly express it, I am prepared to go the whole hog—­it is a case of hog versus calf, isn’t it?—­or, for the matter of that, a whole styful of hogs.”

I suppose that my doubts and irritation were apparent in the inelegant jocosity of my manner.  At any rate, Stephen Strong, who was a shrewd observer, took alarm.

“Look here, doctor,” he said, “I am honest, I am; right or wrong I believe in this anti-vaccination business, and we are going to run the election on it.  If you don’t believe in it—­and you have no particular call to, since every man can claim his own opinion—­you’d better let it alone, and look on all this talk as nothing.  You are our first and best man, but we have several upon the list; I’ll go on to one of them,” and he took up his hat.

I let him take it; I even let him walk towards the door; but, as he approached it, I reflected that with that dogged burly form went all my ambitions and my last chance of advancement in life.  When his hand was already on the handle, not of premeditation, but by impulse, I said:—­

“I don’t know why you should talk like that, as I think that I have given good proof that I am no believer in vaccination.”

“What’s that, doctor?” he asked turning round.

“My little girl is nearly four years old and she has never been vaccinated.”

“Is it so?” he asked doubtfully.

As he spoke I heard the nurse going down the passage and with her my daughter, whom she was taking for her morning walk.  I opened the door and called Jane in, a beautiful little being with dark eyes and golden hair.