he 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