The Boss of Little Arcady | Page 9

drinking-place when
all Nature beckons? Come on back to Hoffmuller's. Besides,"--he cast a
reproachful look at the bar-tender,--"the hospitality of this place is not
what an upright citizen of this great republic has a right to expect when
he's throwing his good money right and left."
He marched out in hurt dignity, followed by his train, many of whom,
in loyalty to their host, sneered openly at the bar-tender as they passed.
Outside the Colonel poised himself in gala attitude, and benignantly
surveyed our quiet little Main Street in both directions. Across the way
in the door of the First National Bank stood Asa Bundy, a look of
interest on his face.

The Colonel's sweeping glance halted upon Bundy. With a glad cry he
started across to him, but Bundy, beholding the move, fled actively
inside. The Colonel reached the door of the bank and tried the knob,
but the key had been turned in the lock, and the next moment the
curtains of the door were swiftly drawn. "Bank Closed" was printed
upon them in large gold letters.
Potts stepped aside to look into the window, and the curtain of that
descended relentlessly. The bank had suddenly taken on an aspect of
Sabbath blankness. Once more the Colonel rattled the knob, then he
turned to his gathering followers.
"Gentlemen, I came here to press the hand of one of Nature's noblemen,
my tried friend, the Honorable Asa Bundy, whom we have just seen
retreating to his precincts, as I might say, with a modesty that is rarely
beautiful. But no matter." Here the Colonel mounted the top step and
glowed out upon his faithful and ever enlarging band.
"Instead, my friends, allow me to read you this splendid tribute from
Bundy, and I trust that after this I shall never hear one of you utter a
word in his disparagement."
Rapidly fluttering the packet of letters, he drew out one bearing the
imprint of the First National Bank of Little Arcady. The crowd,
pressing closer, was cheerfully animated. From down the street on both
sides anxious looks were bent upon the scene by many of our leading
citizens.
"'To Whom it May Concern,'" began the Colonel, in a voice that carried
to the confines of our business centre; "'The determination of our
esteemed citizen, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, to remove from our town
makes it fitting that I record my high appreciation of his character as a
man and his unusual attainments as a lawyer. His going will be a
grievous loss to our community, atoned for only by the knowledge that
he will better himself in a field of richer opportunities. He has proved
himself to possess in full measure those qualities which go to the
making of the best American citizenship, and these, as exercised in our
behalf during his all too-short sojourn among us, entitle him to be

cordially commended as worthy of all trust in any position to which he
may aspire. Very sincerely, A. Bundy, President.'"
Again and again the crowd cheered, and there were encouraging calls
for Bundy; but the First National Bank stolidly preserved its Sabbath
front.
A moment later the Colonel was leading his steadfast cohort across the
street again. Marvin Chislett had unwarily peeped from inside the door
of his mercantile establishment. There was but time to turn the key and
draw the curtains before the procession halted. Such behavior may have
perplexed Potts, but daunt him it could not. From Chislett's top step he
read Chislett's letter to the delighted throng, a letter in which Potts was
said to bear an unblemished reputation, and to be a gentleman and a
scholar, amply meriting any trust that might be reposed in him.
From Chislett's they moved on to the foot of the stairs leading to the
Argus office. Potts sent Big Joe up for twenty-five copies of the latest
number, and, standing on the coal box, he gallantly distributed these to
the crowd as it filed before him, intoning from memory, meantime,
snatches of the eulogy, while the crowd flourished the papers and
gurgled noisily.
A brief plunge into the lethal flood at Skeyhan's, and they came once
more abroad, this time closing the Boston Cash Store most
expeditiously. Potts, enthroned upon a big box in front, among bolts of
muslin, straw hats, and bunches of innocent early lettuce, read the
splendid tribute of the store's proprietor to his capacity as an expert in
jurisprudence and his fitness for a seat of judicial honor. The bank and
Chislett's being still closed, the little street, except in the near vicinity
of Potts, began to sleep in a strange calm.
There were other doors to conquer, however, and Potts, at the head of
his Argus-waving crowd of degenerates, vanquished them all.
Up and down