The Boss of Little Arcady Part 2

He was overcome, it seemed, by the affection which it now transpired that Little Arcady bore for him. Presently he half dried his tears and drew from an inner pocket of his coat the package of our letters.

With eyes again streaming, in a sob-riven voice, he read them all to the pleased crowd. At the end, he regained control of himself.

"Gentlemen, believe it or not, nothing has touched me like this since I bade farewell to my regiment in '65. You are getting under the heart of Jonas Rodney this time--I can't deny that."

He began on the letters again, selecting the choicest, and not forgetting at intervals to rebuke the bar-tender for alleged inactivity.

At last the clock marked ten-forty, and we heard the welcome rumble of the 'bus wheels. There was a hurried consultation with Amos Deane, the driver. He was to enter the bar in a brisk, businesslike way, seize the bag, and hustle the Colonel out before he had time to reflect. We peered over the screen, knowing the fateful moment was come.

We saw the Colonel resist the attack on his bag and listen with marked astonishment to the a.s.sertion of Amos that there was just time to catch the train.

"Time was made for slaves," said Potts.

"That there train ain't goin' to wait a minute," reminded Amos, civilly. The Colonel turned upon him with a large sweetness of manner.

"Ah, yes, my friend, but trains will be pa.s.sing through your pretty little hamlet for years--I hope for ages--yet. They pa.s.s every day, but you can't have Jonas Rodney Potts every day."

Here, with a gesture, he directed the crowd's attention to Amos.

"Look at him, gentlemen. Speak to him for me--for I cannot. I ask you to note the condition he's in." Here, again, the Colonel burst into tears.

"And, oh, my G.o.d!" he sobbed, "could they ask me to trust myself to a drunken rowdy of a driver, even if I _was_ going?" Amos was not only sober, he was a shrewd observer of events, a seasoned judge of men. He turned away without further parley. Big Joe told him he ought to be in better business than trying to break up a pleasant party.

As the 'bus started, the strains of "Auld Lang Syne" floated to us again, and we knew the day was lost.

"A hand of iron in a cunning little velvet glove," said Westley Keyts, in deep disgust as he left us. "It looks to me a darned sight more like a hand of mush in a glove of the _same!_"

I have often been brought to realize that the latent n.o.bility in our human nature is never so effectually aroused as at the second stage of alcoholic dementia. The victim sustains a shock of illumination hardly less than divine. On a sudden he is vividly cognizant of his overwhelming spiritual worth. Dazed in the first moment of this flooding consciousness, he is presently to be heard recalling instances of his n.o.ble conduct under difficulty, of righteous fort.i.tude under strain.

Especially does he find himself endowed with the antique virtues--with courage and a rugged fidelity, a stainless purity of motive, a fond and measureless generosity.

To this stage the libations of Potts had now brought him. He began to refresh the crowd with comments upon his own worth, interspersed with kindly but hurt appreciations of the great world's lack of discernment.

He besought and defied each gentleman present to recall an occasion, however trivial, when his conduct had fallen short of the loftiest standards. Especially were they begged to cite an instance when he had deviated in the least degree from a line of strictest loyalty to any friend. Big Joe Kestril was overcome at this. He broke down and wept out upon the shoulder of Potts his hopeless inability to comply with that outrageous request. The entire crowd became emotional, and a dozen lighted matches were thrust forward toward an apparently incombustible cigar with which Potts had long striven.

Recovering from these first ravages of his self-a.n.a.lysis, the Colonel became just a bit critical.

"But you see, boys, a man of my attributes is hampered and kept down in a one-horse place like this. Remarks have been pa.s.sed about me here that I should blush to repeat. I say it in confidence, but I have again and again been made the sport of a wayward and wanton ridicule. I say, gentlemen, I have always conducted myself as only a Potts knows how to conduct himself--and yet I have been pestered by cheap flings at my personal bearing. Is this courtesy, is it common fairness, is it the boasted civilization of our nineteenth century?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: "AND YET I HAVE BEEN PESTERED BY CHEAP FLINGS AT MY PERSONAL BEARING."]

Hoa.r.s.e expressions of incredulity, of execration, of disgust, came from the crowd as it raised gla.s.ses once more. The Colonel glared down the sloppy length of the bar, then gazed aloft into the smoky heights. The crowd waited for him to say something.

"This is a beautiful day, gentlemen. A fine, balmy spring day. Let us be out and away to mossy dells. Why stay in this low 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 pa.s.sed.

Outside the Colonel poised himself in gala att.i.tude, 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 k.n.o.b, 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 k.n.o.b, then he turned to his gathering followers.

"Gentlemen, I came here to press the hand of one of Nature's n.o.blemen, 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, ent.i.tle 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, s.n.a.t.c.hes 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, crying, meanwhile: "My brother in arms! A younger brother, but a gallant officer, none the less--"

I knew that he sought my letter. Egress from the City Hotel may be achieved, when desirable, by a side door, and I saw no more of Potts that day. I believe my letter spoke of him as an able and graceful pleader, meriting judicial honors, or something of that sort. I had forgotten its exact words, but I did not wish to hear Potts read them.

So I fled to spend the remainder of that eventful day quietly among rosebushes and tender, budding hyacinths, unspotted of the world, receiving, however, occasional bulletins of the orgy from pa.s.sers-by.

From these and sundry narratives gleaned the following day, I was able to trace the later hours of this scandalous saturnalia.

By six o'clock Potts had spent all his money. By six-fifteen this fact could no longer be concealed, and such of his following as had not already fallen by the wayside crept, one by one, to rest. They left the Colonel dreamily, murmurously happy in a chair at the end of the City Hotel bar.

Here, he was discovered about six-thirty by Eustace Eubanks, who had incautiously thought to rebuke him.

"For shame, Colonel Potts!" began Eustace, seeking to fix the uncertain eyes with his finger of scorn. "For shame to have squandered all that money for rum. Don't you know, sir, that a hundred and sixty thousand men die yearly in our land from the effects of rum?"

"Hundred sixty thousand!" mused the Colonel, in polite amazement. "Well, well, figures can't lie! What of it?"

"You have dishonestly spent that money given to you in sacred trust."

This seemed to arouse Potts, and he surveyed Eubanks with more curiosity than delight. He arose, b.u.t.toned his coat, fixed his hat firmly upon his head, and took up his stick and bag. He put upon Eustace a glance of dignified urbanity, as he spoke.

"I don't know who you are, sir,--never saw you before in my life,--but I have done what every good citizen should do. I have spent my money at home. This is a cheap place, full of cheap men. What the town needs, sir, is capital--capital to develop its attributes and industries. It needs more men with the public spirit of J. Rodney, sir. I bid you good evening! Ah, this has been indeed a _beautiful day_!"

He walked out. Those who watched him until he turned out of Main Street into Fourth, and so toward the river, aver--marvelling duly at his powers of resistance--that the head of Potts was erect, his gaze bent aloft, and his gait one of perfect directness save that he stepped a little high.