A moment she held it,
then set it free, perhaps for its lack of spirit. It crawled and
fluttered up the vine, trailing a crumpled wing most sadly, and I took
it for my lesson. Assuredly they were not to be caught with any
profit--at least not brutally in an eager hand. Brush them ever so
lightly and the bloom is off the wings. They are to be watched in their
pretty flitting, loved only in their freedom and from afar, with no
clumsy reachings. That was a good thing to know in any world.
The _Argus_ announced my home-coming with a fine flourish of my title in
Solon's best style. It said that I had come back to take up the practice
of the law. Not even Solon knew that I had come back to the memory of
her.
This is how it befell that I was presently engrossed to outward seeming
with the affairs of Little Arcady--even to the extent of a casual Potts,
and those blessed contingencies that were later to unfold from him. Thus
I took my allotted place and the years began.
CHAPTER V
A MAD PRANK OF THE GODS
A week after the publication of that blithe bit of acrimony which opens
this tale, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, recreated and natty in a new summer
suit of alpaca, his hat freshly ironed, sued the town of Little Arcady
for ten thousand dollar damages to his person and announced his
candidacy at the ensuing election for the honorable office of Judge of
Slocum County.
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