The Boss of Little Arcady | Page 4

his bald
head, which was high and peaked, like Sir Walter Scott's, he carried a
silk hat in an inferior state of preservation. When he began to drink it
was his custom to repair at once to a barber and submit to having his
side-whiskers trimmed fastidiously. Sober, he seemed to feel little pride
of person, and his whiskers at such a time merely called attention
somewhat unprettily to his lack of a chin. His other possessions were
an ebony walking stick with a gold head and what he referred to in
moments of expansion as his "library." This consisted of a copy of the
Revised Statutes, a directory of Cincinnati, Ohio, for the year 1867, and
two volumes of Patent Office reports.
At the time of which I speak the Colonel had long been sober, and the
day that Solon Denney completed those mysterious negotiations with
him he was as far from conventional standards of the beautiful as I
remember to have seen him.
The guise of Solon's subtlety, the touch of his iron hand in a glove of
softest velvet, had been in this wise: he had pointed out to the Colonel
that there were richer fields of endeavor to the west of us; newer, larger
towns, fitter abodes for a man of his parts; communities which had
honors and emoluments to lavish upon the worthy,--prizes which it
would doubtless never be in our poor power to bestow.
Potts was stirred by all this, but he was not blinded to certain
disadvantages,--"a stranger in a strange land," etc., while in Little
Arcady he had already "made himself known."
But, suggested Solon, with a ready wit, if the stranger were to go
fortified with certificates of character from the leading citizens of his
late home?

This was a thing to consider. Potts reflected more favorably; but still he
hesitated. He was unable to believe that these certificates of his
excellence might be obtained. The bar and the commercial element of
Little Arcady had been cold, not to say suspicious, toward him. It was
an unpleasant thing to mention, but a cabal had undeniably been
formed.
Solon was politely incredulous. He pledged his word of honor as a
gentleman to provide the letters,--a laudatory, an uplifting letter, from
every citizen in town whose testimony would be of weight; also a
half-column of fit praise in the next issue of the Argus, twelve copies of
which Potts should freely carry off with him for judicious scattering
about the fortunate town in which his journey should end.
Then Potts spoke openly of the expenses of travel. Solon, royally
promising a purse of gold to take him on his way, clenched the winning
of a neat and bloodless victory.
No one has ever denied that Denney must have employed a faultless, an
incomparable tact, to bring J. Rodney Potts to this agreement. By tact
alone had he achieved that which open sneers, covert insult, abuse,
ridicule, contumely, and forthright threats had failed to consummate,
and in the first flush of the news we all felt much as Westley Keyts said
he did.
"Solon Denney is some subtler than me," said Westley, in a winning
spirit of concession; "I can see that, now. He's the Boss of Little Arcady
after this, all right, so far as I know."
Nevertheless, there was misgiving about the letters for Potts. Old Asa
Bundy, our banker, wanted to know, somewhat peevishly, if it seemed
quite honest to send Potts to another town with a satchel full of letters
certifying to his rare values as a man and a citizen. What would that
town think of us two or three days later?
"This is no time to split hairs, Bundy," said Solon; and I believe I added,
"Don't be quixotic, Mr. Bundy!"

Hereupon Westley Keyts broke in brightly.
"Why, now, they'll see in a minute that the whole thing was meant as a
joke. They'll see that the laugh is on them, and they'll have a lot of fun
out of it, and then send the old cuss along to another town with some
more funny letters to fool the next ones." "That's all very well, but it
isn't high conduct," insisted Bundy.
Westley Keyts now achieved the nearest approach to diplomacy I have
ever known of him.
"Oh, well, Asa, after all, this is a world of give and take. 'Live and let
live' is my motto."
"We must use common sense in these matters, you know, Bundy,"
observed Solon, judicially.
And that sophistry prevailed, for we were weak unto faintness from our
burden.
We gave letters setting forth that J. Rodney Potts was the ideal
inhabitant of a city larger than our own. We glowed in describing the
virtues of our departing townsman; his honesty of purpose, his integrity