Apparently, fate had never made a wilder, more purposeless cast than
when it brought Clem to Little Arcady with Potts.
True, the circumstance enabled Potts for a time to refer to his
"body-servant," and to regale the chair-tilted loungers along the City
Hotel front with a tale of picking the fellow up on a Southern
battle-field, and of winning his dog-like devotion by subsequent valor
upon other fields. "It was pathetic, and comical, too, gentlemen, to
hear that nigger beg me on his bended knees to take better care of
myself and not insist upon getting to the front of every charge. 'Stay
back and let some of the others do a little fighting,' he would say,
with tears rolling down his black cheeks. And I admit I was rash, but--"
Clem, not long after their arrival, confided to such of us as seemed
worthy the less romantic tale that he had found the Colonel drunk on the
streets of Cincinnati. He had gone there to seek a fortune for his
"folks" and had found the Colonel instead; found him under circumstances
which were typical of the Colonel's periods of relaxation.
"Yes, seh, anybody coulda had that man when Ah found him," averred Clem;
"anybody could 'a' had him fo' th' askin'.
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