The Boss of Little Arcady | Page 9

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 he wandered busily, doors closing and curtains falling swiftly at his approach. Then would he turn majestically, and say, with a hand raised, "My friends, a moment's silence, while I read you this magnificent tribute from one who is unfortunately not among us."
He was so impressive with this that at last the crowd would remove hats at each reading, to the Colonel's manifest approval. The doffed hat and the clutched Argus became the mark of his drink-bought serfs. By four o'clock the only hospitable doorways on the street were those of the three saloons. Our leading business men were departing from their establishments by back doors and the secrecy of gracious alleys.
From Skeyhan's to Hoffmuller's, from Hoffmuller's to the City Hotel, the crowd sang and shouted its irregular progress, the air being "Auld Lang Syne."
It was about this time that the Colonel unhappily caught a glimpse of myself through the window of the hotel. A glad light came into his eyes, and at once he searched among the letters,