ng day. Let us be
out and away to mossy dells. Why stay in this low drinking-place when
all Nature beckons? Come on back to Hoffmuller's. Besides,"--he cast a
reproachful look at the bar-tender,--"the hospitality of this place is
not what an upright citizen of this great republic has a right to expect
when he's throwing his good money right and left."

He marched out in hurt dignity, followed by his train, many of whom, in
loyalty to their host, sneered openly at the bar-tender as they passed.

Outside the Colonel poised himself in gala attitude, and benignantly
surveyed our quiet little Main Street in both directions. Across the way
in the door of the First National Bank stood Asa Bundy, a look of
interest on his face.

The Colonel's sweeping glance halted upon Bundy. With a glad cry he
started across to him, but Bundy, beholding the move, fled actively
inside. The Colonel reached the door of the bank and tried the knob, but
the key had been turned in the lock, and the next moment the curtains of
the door were swiftly drawn. "Bank Closed" was printed upon them in
large gold letters.

Potts stepped aside to look into the window, and the curtain of that
descended relentlessly. The bank had suddenly taken on an aspect of
Sabbath blankness. Once more the Colonel rattled the knob, then he
turned to his gathering followers.

"Gentlemen, I came here to press the hand of one of Nature's noblemen,
my tried friend, the Honorable Asa Bundy, whom we have just seen
retreating to his precincts, as I might say, with a modesty that is
rarely beautiful. But no matter." Here the Colonel mounted the top step
and glowed out upon his faithful and ever enlarging band.

"Instead, my friends, allow me to read you this splendid tribute from
Bundy, and I trust that after this I shall never hear one of you utter a
word in his disparagement."

Rapidly fluttering the packet of letters, he drew out one bearing the
imprint of the First National Bank of Little Arcady. The crowd, pressing
closer, was cheerfully animated. From down the street on both sides
anxious looks were bent upon the scene by many of our leading citizens.

"'To Whom it May Concern,'" began the Colonel, in a voice that carried
to the confines of our business centre; "'The determination of our
esteemed citizen, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, to remove from our town makes
it fitting that I record my high appreciation of his character as a man
and his unusual attainments as a lawye