We know now, moreover, that an undercurrent of circumstance existed
which did not even ripple the surface of that apparently facetious
brutality hurled at J. Rodney Potts.
The truth may not be told in a word. But it was in this affair that
Solon Denney won his title of "Boss of Little Arcady," a title first
rendered unto him somewhat in derision, I regret to say, by a number of
our leading citizens, who sought, as it were, to make sport of him.
It began in a jest, as do all the choicest tragedies of the gods,--a few
lines of idle badinage, meant to spice Solon's column of business locals
with a readable sprightliness. The thing was printed, in fact, between
"Let Harpin Cust shine your face with his new razors" and "See that line
of clocks at Chislett's for sixty cents. They look like cuckoos and keep
good time."
"Not much news this week," the item blithely ran, "so we hereby start
the rumor that 'Upright' Potts is going to leave town. We would incite
no community to lawless endeavor, but--may the Colonel encounter swiftly
in his new environment that warm reception to which his qualities of
mind, no less than his qualities of heart, so richly entitle him,--that
reception, in short, which our own debilitated public spirit has timidly
refused him.
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