, 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. Reflecting 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 gods' 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 inferior
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 see