How the Boss won his title
Late last Thursday evening one Jonas Rodney Potts, better known to this community as "Upright" Potts, stumbled into the mill-race, where it had providentially been left open just north of Cady's mill. Everything was going along finely until two hopeless busybodies were attracted to the spot by his screams, and fished him out. It is feared that he will recover. We withhold the names of his rescuers, although under strong temptation to publish them broadcast.—Little Arcady Argus of May 21st.
Looking back to that time from a happier present, I am filled by a genuine awe of J. Rodney Potts. Rejecting upon those benign ends which the gods chose to make him serve, I can but marvel how lightly each of us may meet and scorn a casual Potts, unrecking his gracious and predestined office in the play of Fate.
Of the present—to me—supreme drama of the Little Country, I can only say that the gods had selected their agent with a cunning so flawless that suspicion of his portents could not well have been aroused in one lacking discernment like unto the very own. So trivially, so utterly, so pitiably casual, to eyes of the flesh, was this Potts of Little Arcady, from his immortal soul to the least item of his inforior raiment!
Thus craftily are we fooled by the Lords of Destiny, whose caprice it is to affect remoteness from us and a lofty unconcern for our poor little doings.
There is bitterness in the lines of that Argus paragraph, and a flippant incivility might be read between them by the least discerning.
Arcady of the Little Country, however, knows there is neither bitterness nor real cynicism in Solon Denney, founder, editor, and proprietor of the Little Arcady Argus; motto, "Hew to the Line, Let the Chips Fall Where they May!" Indeed, we do know Solon. Often enough has the Argus hewn inexorably to the line, when that line led straight through the heart of its guiding genius and through the hearts of us all. One who had seen him, as I did, stand uncovered in the presence of his new Washington hand-press, the day that dynamo of Light was erected in the Argus office, could never suppose him to lack humanity or the just reverence demanded by his craft.
We may concede without disloyalty that Solon is peculiar unto himself. In his presence you are cursed with an unquiet suspicion that he may become frivolous with you at any moment,—may, indeed, be so at that moment, despite a due facial gravity and tones of weight,—for he will not infrequently seem to be both trivial and serious in the same breath. Again, he is amazingly sensitive for one not devoid of humor. In a pleasant sense he is acutely aware of himself, and he does not dislike to know that you feel his quality. Still again, he is bound to spice his writing. Were it his lot to report events on the Day of Judgment, I believe the Argus account would be thought too highly colored by many persons of good taste.
But Little Arcady knows that Solon is loyal to its welfare—knows that he is fit to wield the mightiest lever of Civilization in its behalf on Wednesday of each week.
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. We claim the right to start any rumor of this sort that will cheer the souls of an admiring constituency. Now is the time to pay up that subscription."
The intention, of course, was openly playful—a not subtle sally meant to be read and forgotten. Yet—will it be credited?—more than one of us read it so hurriedly, perhaps with so passionate a longing to have it the truth, as not to perceive its satirical indirections. The rumor actually lived for a day that Potts was to disembarrass the town of his presence.
And then, from the fictitious stuff of this rumor was spawned a veritable inspiration. Several of our most public-spirited citizens seemed to father it simultaneously.
"Why should Potts not leave town—why should he not seek out a new field of effort?"
"Field of effort" was a rank bit of poesy, it being certain that Potts would never make an effort worthy of the name in any field whatsoever; but the sense of it was plain.
Increasingly with the years had plans been devised to alleviate the condition of Potts's residence among us. Some of these had required a too definite and artificial abruptness in the mechanics of his removal; others, like Eustace Eubanks's plot for having all our best people refuse to notice him, depended upon a sensitiveness in the person aimed at which he did not possess. Besides, there had been talk of disbarring him from the practice of his profession, and I, as a lawyer, had been urged to instigate that proceeding. Unquestionably there was ground for it.
But now this random pleasantry of Solon Denney's set our minds to working in another direction.
In the broad, pleasant window of the post-office, under the "NO LOAFING HERE!" sign, half a dozen of us discussed it while we waited for the noon mail. There seemed to be a half-formed belief that Potts might adroitly be made to perceive advantages in leaving us.
"It's a whole lot better to manipulate and be subtle in a case like this," suggested the editor of the Argus. "Threats of violence, forcible expulsion, disbarment proceedings—all crude—and besides they won't move Potts. Jonas Rodney may not be gifted with a giant intellect, but he is cunning."
"The cunning of a precocious boy," prompted Eustace Eubanks, who was one of us. "He is well aware that we would not dare attempt lawless violence."
"Exactly, Eustace," answered Solon. "I tell you, gentlemen, this thriving little town needs a canning factory, as we all know; but more than a canning factory it needs a Boss,—one of those strong characters that make tools of their fellow-men, who rule our cities with an iron hand but take care to keep the hand in a velvet glove,—a Boss that is diplomatic, yet an autocrat."
That careless use of the term "Boss" was afterward seen to be unfortunate for Solon. They remembered it against him.
"That's right," said Westley Keyts. "Let's be diplomatic with him."
"How would you begin, Westley, if you don't mind telling us?" Solon had already begun to shape a scheme of his own.
"Why," answered Westley, looking very earnest, "just go up to him in a quiet, refined manner—no blustering, understand—and say in a low tone, kind of off-hand but serious, 'Now, look a here, Potts, old boy, let's talk this thing over like a couple of gentlemen had ought to.' 'Well, all right,' says Potts, 'that's fair—I couldn't refuse that as from one gentleman to another gentleman.' Well, then, say to him, 'Now, Potts, you know as well as any man in this town that you're an all-round no-good—you're a human Not—and a darn scalawag into the bargain. So what's the use? Will you go, or won't you?' Then if he'd begin to hem and haw and try to put it off with one thing or another, why, just hint in a roundabout way—perfectly genteel, you understand—that there'd be doings with a kittle of tar and feathers that same night at eight-thirty sharp, rain or shine, with a free ride right afterward to the town line and mebbe a bit beyond, without no cushions. Up about the Narrows would be a good place to say farewell," he concluded thoughtfully.
We had listened patiently enough, but this was too summary. Westley Keyts is our butcher, a good, honest, energetic, downright business man with a square forehead and a blunt jaw and red hair that bristles with challenges. But he seems compelled to say too nearly what he means to render him useful in negotiations requiring any considerable finesse.
"We were speaking, Westley, of the gentle functions of diplomacy," remarked Solon, cuttingly. "Of course, we could waylay Potts and kill him with one of your cleavers and have his noble head stuffed and mounted to hang up over Barney Skeyhan's bar, but it wouldn't be subtle—it would not be what the newspapers call 'a triumph of diplomacy'! And then, again, reports of it might be carried to other towns, and talk would be caused."
"Now, say," retorted Westley, somewhat abashed, "I was thinking I answered all that by winding up the way like I did, asking him,—not mad-like, you understand,—'Now will you go or won't you?' just like that. All I can say is, if that ain't diplomacy, then I don't know what in Time diplomacy is!"
I think we conceded this, in silence, be it understood, for Westley is respected. But we looked to Solon for a more tenuous subtlety.
Nor did he fail us. Two days later Potts upon the public street actually announced his early departure from Little Arcady.
To know how pleasing an excitement this created one should know more about Potts. It will have been inferred that he was objectionable. For the fact, he was objectionable in every way: as a human being, a man, a citizen, a member of the Slocum County bar, and a veteran of our late civil conflict. He was shiftless, untidy, a borrower, a pompous braggart, a trouble-maker, forever driving some poor devil into senseless litigation. Moreover, he was blithely unscrupulous in his dealings with the Court, his clients, his brother-attorneys, and his fellow-men at large. When I add that he was given to spells of hard drinking, during which he became obnoxious beyond the wildest possible dreams of that quality, it will be seen that we of Little Arcady were not without reason for wishing him away.
He had drifted casually in upon us after the war, accompanied somewhat elegantly by one John Randolph Clement Tuckerman, an ex-slave. He came with much talk of his regiment,—a fat-cheeked, florid man of forty-five or so, with shifty blue eyes and an address moderately insinuating. Very tall he was, and so erect that he seemed to lean a little backward. This physical trait, combining with a fancy for referring to himself freely as "an upright citizen of this reunited and glorious republic, sir!" had speedily made him known as "Upright" Potts. He was of a slender build and a bony frame, except in front. His long, single-breasted frock-coat hung loosely enough about his shoulders, yet buttoned tightly over a stomach that was so incongruous as to seem artificial. The sleeves of the coat were glossy from much desk rubbing, and its front advertised a rather inattentive behavior at table. The Colonel's dress was completed by drab overgaiters and poorly draped trousers of the same once-delicate hue. Upon his bald head, which was high and peaked, like Sir Walter Scott's, he carried a silk hat in an inferior state of preservation. When he began to drink it was his custom to repair at once to a barber and submit to having his side-whiskers trimmed fastidiously. Sober, he seemed to feel little pride of person, and his whiskers at such a time merely called attention somewhat unprettily to his lack of a chin. His other possessions were an ebony walking stick with a gold head and what he referred to in moments of expansion as his "library." This consisted of a copy of the Revised Statutes, a directory of Cincinnati, Ohio, for the year 1867, and two volumes of Patent Office reports.
At the time of which I speak the Colonel had long been sober, and the day that Solon Denney completed those mysterious negotiations with him he was as far from conventional standards of the beautiful as I remember to have seen him.
The guise of Solon's subtlety, the touch of his iron hand in a glove of softest velvet, had been in this wise: he had pointed out to the Colonel that there were richer fields of endeavor to the west of us; newer, larger towns, fitter abodes for a man of his parts; communities which had honors and emoluments to lavish upon the worthy,—prizes which it would doubtless never be in our poor power to bestow.
Potts was stirred by all this, but he was not blinded to certain disadvantages,—"a stranger in a strange land," etc., while in Little Arcady he had already "made himself known."
But, suggested Solon, with a ready wit, if the stranger were to go fortified with certificates of character from the leading citizens of his late home?
This was a thing to consider. Potts reflected more favorably; but still he hesitated. He was unable to believe that these certificates of his excellence might be obtained. The bar and the commercial element of Little Arcady had been cold, not to say suspicious, toward him. It was an unpleasant thing to mention, but a cabal had undeniably been formed.
Solon was politely incredulous. He pledged his word of honor as a gentleman to provide the letters,—a laudatory, an uplifting letter, from every citizen in town whose testimony would be of weight; also a half-column of fit praise in the next issue of the Argus, twelve copies of which Potts should freely carry off with him for judicious scattering about the fortunate town in which his journey should end.
Then Potts spoke openly of the expenses of travel. Solon, royally promising a purse of gold to take him on his way, clenched the winning of a neat and bloodless victory.
No one has ever denied that Denney must have employed a faultless, an incomparable tact, to bring J. Rodney Potts to this agreement. By tact alone had he achieved that which open sneers, covert insult, abuse, ridicule, contumely, and forthright threats had failed to consummate, and in the first flush of the news we all felt much as Westley Keyts said he did.
"Solon Denney is some subtler than me," said Westley, in a winning spirit of concession; "I can see that, now. He's the Boss of Little Arcady after this, all right, so far as I know."
Nevertheless, there was misgiving about the letters for Potts. Old Asa Bundy, our banker, wanted to know, somewhat peevishly, if it seemed quite honest to send Potts to another town with a satchel full of letters certifying to his rare values as a man and a citizen. What would that town think of us two or three days later?
"This is no time to split hairs, Bundy," said Solon; and I believe I added, "Don't be quixotic, Mr. Bundy!"
Hereupon Westley Keyts broke in brightly.
"Why, now, they'll see in a minute that the whole thing was meant as a joke. They'll see that the laugh is on them, and they'll have a lot of fun out of it, and then send the old cuss along to another town with some more funny letters to fool the next ones."
"That's all very well, but it isn't high conduct," insisted Bundy.
Westley Keyts now achieved the nearest approach to diplomacy I have ever known of him.
"Oh, well, Asa, after all, this is a world of give and take. 'Live and let live' is my motto."
"We must use common sense in these matters, you know, Bundy," observed Solon, judicially.
And that sophistry prevailed, for we were weak unto faintness from our burden.
We gave letters setting forth that J. Rodney Potts was the ideal inhabitant of a city larger than our own. We glowed in describing the virtues of our departing townsman; his honesty of purpose, his integrity of character, his learning in the law, his wide range of achievement, civic and military,—all those attributes that fitted him to become a stately ornament and a tower of strength to any community larger in the least degree than our own modest town.
And there was the purse. Fifty dollars was suggested by Eustace Eubanks, but Asa Bundy said that this would not take Potts far enough. Eustace said that a man could travel an immense distance for fifty dollars. Bundy retorted that an ordinary man might perhaps go far enough on that sum, but not Potts.
"If we are to perpetrate this outrage at all," insisted Bundy, pulling in calculation at his little chin-whisker, "let us do it thoroughly. A hundred dollars can't take Potts any too far. We must see that he keeps going until he could never get back—"
We all nodded to this.
"—and another thing, the farther away from this town those letters are read,—why, the better for our reputations."
A hundred dollars it was. Purse and letters were turned over to Solon Denney to deliver to Potts. The Argus came out with its promised eulogy, a thing so fulsome that any human being but J. Rodney Potts would have sickened to read it of himself.
But our little town was elated. One could observe that last day a subdued but confident gayety along its streets as citizens greeted one another.
On every hand were good fellowship and kind words, the light-hearted salute, the joyous mien. It was an occasion that came near to being festal, and Solon Denney was its hero. He sought to bear his honors with the modesty that is native to him, but in his heart he knew that we now spoke of him glibly as the Boss of Little Arcady, and the consciousness of it bubbled in his manner in spite of him.
When it was all over,—though I had not once raised my voice in protest, and had frankly connived with the others,—I confess that I felt shame for us and pity for the friendless man we were sending out into the world. Something childlike in his acceptance of the proposal, a few phrases of naïve enthusiasm for his new prospects, repeated to me by Solon, touched me strangely. 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. For my share of the guilt, I resolved to convey to Potts privately on the morrow a more than perfunctory promise of aid, should he find himself distressed at any time in what he would doubtless term his new field of endeavor.