The water that girdled the houses and shops of London must, if anything,
have only increased their previous witchery and wonder. For as the Roman
Catholic priest in the story said: "Wine is good with everything except
water," and on a similar principle, water is good with everything except
wine.




THE VOTE AND THE HOUSE


Most of us will be canvassed soon, I suppose; some of us may even
canvass. Upon which side, of course, nothing will induce me to state,
beyond saying that by a remarkable coincidence it will in every case be
the only side in which a high-minded, public-spirited, and patriotic
citizen can take even a momentary interest. But the general question of
canvassing itself, being a non-party question, is one which we may be
permitted to approach. The rules for canvassers are fairly familiar to
any one who has ever canvassed. They are printed on the little card
which you carry about with you and lose. There is a statement, I think,
that you must not offer a voter food or drink. However hospitable you
may feel towards him in his own house, you must not carry his lunch
about with you. You must not produce a veal cutlet from your tail-coat
pocket. You must not conceal poached eggs about your person. You must
not, like a kind of conjurer, produce baked potatoes from your hat. In
short, the canvasser must not feed the voter in any way. Whether the
voter is allowed to feed the canvasser, whether the voter may give the
canvasser veal cutlets and baked potatoes, is a point of law on which I
have never been able to inform myself. When I found myself canvassing a