"
I fell asleep that night on a conviction that our taste for barren
reality is our chief error. If we could only believe forever, what a
good world it could be--"a world of fine fabling," indeed! Also I
wondered what J. Rodney Potts might have to apprehend from the leaven of
fact in the fabling of Billy Durgin.
CHAPTER IX
HOW THE BOSS SAVED HIMSELF
He whom they had, with facetious intent, called "the Boss of Little
Arcady" now began to wear a mien of defiance. From being confessedly
distraught, he displayed, as the days went by, a spiritual uplift that
fell but little short of arrogance. He did not permit any reason to be
revealed for this marked change of demeanor. He was confident but
secretive, serene but furtive, as one who has endured gibes for the sake
of one brilliant _coup_.
This apparently causeless change permeated even to the columns of the
_Argus_. It had been observed by more than one of us that these had of
late suffered from the depression of their editor. Their general tone
had been negative. Now they spoke in a lightsome tone of
self-sufficiency. They were gay, even jaunty. It was in this very epoch
that the verse was born which for many years sang blithely from the top
of the first column--sang of Denney's public-spirited optimism as to
Slocum County and the Little Country.
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