The Boss of Little Arcady | Page 6

office, I had to pass
the barber-shop of Harpin Cust, in front of which I found myself
impelled to stop. Looking over the row of potted geraniums in the
window, I beheld Colonel Potts in the chair, swathed to the chin in the
barber's white cloth, a gaze of dignified admiration riveted upon his
counterpart in the mirror. Seen thus, he was not without a similarity to
pictures of the Matterhorn, his bare, rugged peak rising fearsomely
above his snow-draped bulk. Harpin appeared to be putting the last

snipping touches to the Colonel's too-long neglected side-whiskers. On
the table lay his hat and gold-headed cane, and close at hand stood his
bulging valise.
I walked hastily on. The thing was ominous. Yet, might it not merely
denote that Potts wished to enter upon his new life well barbered? The
bulging bag supported this possibility, and yet I was ill at ease.
Reaching my office, I sought to engage myself with the papers of an
approaching suit, but it was impossible to ignore the darkling cloud of
disaster which impended. I returned to the street anxiously.
On my way to the City Hotel, where I had resolved to await like a man
what calamity there might be, I again passed the barber-shop.
Harpin Cust now leaned, gracefully attentive, on the back of the empty
chair, absently swishing his little whisk broom. Before him was planted
Potts, his left foot advanced, his head thrown back, reading to Harpin
from a spread page of the Argus. I divined that he was reading Solon's
comment upon himself, and I shuddered.
As I paused at the door of the hotel Potts emerged from the barber-shop.
In one hand he carried his bag, in the other his cane and the Little
Arcady Argus. His hat was a bit to one side, and it seemed to me that he
was leaning back farther than usual. He had started briskly down the
street in the opposite direction from me, but halted on meeting Eustace
Eubanks. The Colonel put down his bag and they shook hands. Eustace
seemed eager to pass on, but the Colonel detained him and began
reading from the Argus. His voice carried well on the morning air, and
various phrases, to which he gave the full meed of emphasis, floated to
me on the gentle breeze. "That peerless pleader and Prince of
Gentlemen," came crisply to my ears. Eustace appeared to be restive,
but the Colonel, through caution, or, perhaps, mere friendliness, had
moored him by a coat lapel.
The reading done, I saw that Eustace declined some urgent request of
the Colonel's, drawing away the moment his coat was released. As they
parted, my worst fears were confirmed, for I saw the Colonel progress

flourishingly to the corner and turn in under the sign, "Barney Skeyhan;
Choice Wines, Liquors, and Cigars."
"What did he say?" I asked of Eustace as he came up.
"It was exceedingly distasteful, Major." Eustace was not a little
perturbed by the encounter. "He read every word of that disgusting
article in the Argus and then he begged me to go into that Skeyhan's
drinking-place with him and have a glass of liquor. I said very sharply,
'Colonel Potts, I have never known the taste of liquor in my whole life
nor used tobacco in any form.' At that he looked at me in the utmost
astonishment and said: 'Bless my soul! Really? Young man, don't you
put it off another day--life is awful uncertain.' 'Why, Colonel,' I said,
'that isn't any way to talk,' but he simply tore down the street, saying
that I was taking great chances."
"And now he is reading his piece to Barney Skeyhan!" I groaned.
"Rum is the scourge of our American civilization," remarked Eustace,
warmly.
"Barney Skeyhan's rum would scourge anybody's civilization," I said.
"Of course I meant all civilization," suggested Eustace, in polite help to
my lame understanding.
Precisely at nine o'clock Potts issued from Skeyhan's, bearing his bag,
cane, and Argus as before. He looked up and down the quiet street
interestedly, then crossed over to Hermann Hoffmuller's, another
establishment in which our civilization was especially menaced. He
was followed cordially by five of Little Arcady's lesser citizens, who
had obviously sustained the relation of guests to him at Skeyhan's. In
company with Westley Keyts and Eubanks, I watched this procession
from the windows of the City Hotel. Solon Denney chanced to pass at
the moment, and we hailed him.
"Oh, I'll soon fix that," said Solon, confidently. "Don't you worry!"

And forthwith he sent Billy Durgin, who works in the City Hotel, to
Hoffmuller's. He was to remind Colonel Potts that his train left at
eleven-eight.
Billy returned with news. Potts was reading the piece to Hoffmuller and
a number of his patrons.