The Boss of Little Arcady | Page 5

of character, his learning in the law, his wide range of achievement,
civic and military,--all those attributes that fitted him to become a
stately ornament and a tower of strength to any community larger in the
least degree than our own modest town.
And there was the purse. Fifty dollars was suggested by Eustace
Eubanks, but Asa Bundy said that this would not take Potts far enough.
Eustace said that a man could travel an immense distance for fifty
dollars. Bundy retorted that an ordinary man might perhaps go far
enough on that sum, but not Potts.
"If we are to perpetrate this outrage at all," insisted Bundy, pulling in
calculation at his little chin-whisker, "let us do it thoroughly. A
hundred dollars can't take Potts any too far. We must see that he keeps
going until he could never get back--" We all nodded to this.

"--and another thing, the farther away from this town those letters are
read,--why, the better for our reputations."
A hundred dollars it was. Purse and letters were turned over to Solon
Denney to deliver to Potts. The Argus came out with its promised
eulogy, a thing so fulsome that any human being but J. Rodney Potts
would have sickened to read it of himself.
But our little town was elated. One could observe that last day a
subdued but confident gayety along its streets as citizens greeted one
another.
On every hand were good fellowship and kind words, the light-hearted
salute, the joyous mien. It was an occasion that came near to being
festal, and Solon Denney was its hero. He sought to bear his honors
with the modesty that is native to him, but in his heart he knew that we
now spoke of him glibly as the Boss of Little Arcady, and the
consciousness of it bubbled in his manner in spite of him.
When it was all over,--though I had not once raised my voice in protest,
and had frankly connived with the others,--I confess that I felt shame
for us and pity for the friendless man we were sending out into the
world. Something childlike in his acceptance of the proposal, a few
phrases of naive enthusiasm for his new prospects, repeated to me by
Solon, touched me strangely. It was, therefore, with real embarrassment
that I read the Argus notice. "With profound regret," it began, "we are
obliged to announce to our readers the determination of our
distinguished fellow-townsman, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, to shake the
dust of Little Arcady from his feet. Deaf to entreaties from our leading
citizens, the gallant Colonel has resolved that in simple justice to
himself he must remove to some larger field of action, where his native
genius, his flawless probity, and his profound learning in the law may
secure for him those richer rewards which a man of his unusual caliber
commendably craves and so abundantly merits."
There followed an overflowing half-column of warmest praise,
embodying felicitations to the unnamed city so fortunate as to secure
this "peerless pleader and Prince of Gentlemen." It ended with the

assurance that Colonel Potts would take with him the cordial good-will
of every member of a community to which he had endeared himself, no
less by his sterling civic virtues than by his splendid qualities of mind
and heart.
The thing filled me with an indignant pity. I tried in vain to sleep. In
the darkness of night our plan came to seem like an atrocious outrage
upon a guileless, defenceless ne'er-do-well. For my share of the guilt, I
resolved to convey to Potts privately on the morrow a more than
perfunctory promise of aid, should he find himself distressed at any
time in what he would doubtless term his new field of endeavor.
CHAPTER II
THE GOLDEN DAY OF COLONEL POTTS
I awoke the next morning under most vivid portents of calamity. I
believe I am neither notional, nor given to small, vulgar superstitions,
but I have learned that this peculiar sensation is never without
significance. I remember that I felt it the night our wagon bridge went
out by high water. I tried to read the presentiment as I dressed. But not
until I was shaving did it relate itself to the going out of Potts. Then the
illumination came with a speed so electric that I gashed my chin under
the shock of it. Instantly I seemed to know, as well as I know to-day,
that the Potts affair had, in some manner, been botched.
So apprehensive was I that I lingered an hour on my little riverside
porch, dreading the events that I felt the day must unfold. Inevitably,
however, I was drawn to the centre of things. Turning down Main
Street at the City Hotel corner, on the way to my