While the squire was thus employed, his master engaged in conversation with the stranger, who happened to be a London dealer travelling for orders, and was well acquainted with the particulars which our adventurer wanted to know.
It was from this communicative tradesman he learned, that the competitors were Sir Valentine Quickset and Mr.Isaac Vanderpelft; the first a mere fox-hunter, who depended for success in his election upon his interest among the high-flying gentry; the other a stock jobber and contractor of foreign extract, not without a mixture of Hebrew blood, immensely rich, who was countenanced by his Grace of----, and supposed to have distributed large sums in securing a majority of votes among the yeomanry of the county, possessed of small freeholds, and copyholders, a great number of which last resided in this borough.

He said these were generally dissenters and weavers; and that the mayor, who was himself a manufacturer, had received a very considerable order for exportation, in consequence of which it was believed he would support Mr.Vanderpelft with all his influence and credit.
Sir Launcelot, roused at this intelligence, called for his armour, which being buckled on in a hurry, he mounted his steed, attended by Crabshaw on Gilbert, and rode immediately into the midst of the multitude by which the hustings were surrounded, just as Sir Valentine Quickset began to harangue the people from an occasional theatre, formed of a plank supported by the upper board of the public stocks, and an inferior rib of a wooden cage pitched also for the accommodation of petty delinquents.
Though the singular appearance of Sir Launcelot at first attracted the eyes of all the spectators, yet they did not fail to yield attention to the speech of his brother-knight, Sir Valentine, which ran in the following strain:--"Gentlemen vreeholders of this here county, I shan't pretend to meake a vine flourishing speech--I'm a plain-spoken man, as you all know.

I hope I shall always speak my maind without vear or vavour, as the zaying is.

'T is the way of the Quicksets--we are no upstarts, nor vorreigners, nor have we any Jewish blood in our veins; we have lived in this here neighbourhood time out of mind, as you all know, and possess an estate of vive thousand clear, which we spend at whoam, among you, in old English hospitality.

All my vorevathers have been parliament-men, and I can prove that ne'er a one o' um gave a zingle vote for the court since the Revolution.