It was, therefore, with real embarrassment
that I read the _Argus_ notice. "With profound regret," it began, "we
are obliged to announce to our readers the determination of our
distinguished fellow-townsman, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, to shake the
dust of Little Arcady from his feet. Deaf to entreaties from our leading
citizens, the gallant Colonel has resolved that in simple justice to
himself he must remove to some larger field of action, where his native
genius, his flawless probity, and his profound learning in the law may
secure for him those richer rewards which a man of his unusual caliber
commendably craves and so abundantly merits."
There followed an overflowing half-column of warmest praise, embodying
felicitations to the unnamed city so fortunate as to secure this
"peerless pleader and Prince of Gentlemen." It ended with the assurance
that Colonel Potts would take with him the cordial good-will of every
member of a community to which he had endeared himself, no less by his
sterling civic virtues than by his splendid qualities of mind and heart.
The thing filled me with an indignant pity. I tried in vain to sleep. In
the darkness of night our plan came to seem like an atrocious outrage
upon a guileless, defenceless ne'er-do-well.
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