we 're to act sagaciously
in introducing an unknown candidate to a borough that has a sneaking liking for
the kind of person, more honour to it. I 'm a political veteran, sir; I speak
from experience. We must employ our weapons, every one of them, and all off the
grindstone.«
    »Very well,« said Beauchamp. »Now understand; you are not in future to
employ the weapons, as you call them, that I have objected to.«
    Timothy gaped slightly.
    »Whatever you will, but no puffery,« Beauchamp added. »Can I by any means
arrest - purchase - is it possible, tell me, to lay an embargo - stop to-day's
issue of the Gazette?«
    »No more than the bite of a mad dog,« Timothy replied, before he had
considered upon the monstrous nature of the proposal.
    Beauchamp humphed, and tossed his head. The simile of the dog struck him
with intense effect.
    »There 'd be a second edition,« said Timothy, »and you might buy up that.
But there 'll be a third, and you may buy up that; but there 'll be a fourth and
a fifth, and so on ad infinitum, with the advertisement of the sale of the
foregoing creating a demand like a rageing thirst in a shipwreck, in Bligh's
boat, in the tropics. I 'm afraid Com - Captain Beauchamp, sir, there 's no
stopping the Press while the people have an appetite for it - and a Company's at
the back of it.«
    »Pooh, don't talk to me in that way; all I complain of is the figure you
have made of me,« said Beauchamp, fetching him smartly out of his nonsense; »and
all I ask of you is not to be at it again. Who would suppose from reading an
article like that, that I am a candidate with a single political idea!«
    »An article like that,« said Timothy, winking, and a little surer of his man
now that he suggested his possession of ideas, »an article like that is the best
cloak you can put on a candidate with too many of 'em, Captain Beauchamp. I 'll
tell you, sir; I came, I heard of your candidature, I had your sketch, the
pattern of ye, before me, and I was told that Dr. Shrapnel fathered you
politically. There was my brief! I had to persuade our constituents that you,
Commander