about the town. This, with its attendant bridges, gave to Arcadia an
aspect singularly medieval. It also furnished a convenient line of
social demarcation. Chauffeurs, college professors, lawyers, gamblers,
county officers, together with a few tradesmen and railroad officials,
abode within "the Isle of Arcady," on more or less even terms with the
Arcadians proper; millmen, railroaders, lumberjacks, and the underworld
generally, dwelt without the pale.

The company rubbed its lamp again--and behold! an armory, a hospital and
a library! It contributed liberally to churches and campaign funds; it
exercised a general supervision over morals and manners. For example, in
the deed to every lot sold was an ironclad, fire-tested, automatic and
highly constitutional forfeiture clause, to the effect that sale or
storage on the premises of any malt, vinous or spirituous liquors should
immediately cause the title to revert to the company. The company's own
vicarious saloon, on Lot Number One, was a sumptuous and magnificent
affair. It was known as The Mint.

All this while we have been trying to reach the night watchman.

In the early youth of Arcadia there came to her borders a warlock Finn,
of ruddy countenance and solid build. He had a Finnish name, and they
called him Lars Porsena.

Lars P. had been a seafaring man. While spending a year's wage in San
Francisco, he had wandered into Arcadia by accident. There, being unable
to find the sea, he became a lumberjack--with a custom, when in spirits,
of beating the watchman of that date into an omelet.

The indulgence of this penchant gave occasion for much adverse
criticism. Fine and imprisonment failed to deter him from this playful
habit. One watchman tried to dissuade Lars from his foible with a club,
and his successor even went so far as to shoot him--to shoot Lars P.,
of course, not his predecessor--the successor's predecessor, not Lars
Porsena's--if he ever had one, which he hadn't. (What we need is
more pronouns.) He--the successor of the predecessor--resigned when
Lars became convalescent; but Lars was no whit dismayed by this
contretemps--in his first light-hearted moment he resumed his old
amusement with unabated gayety.

Thus was one of our greatest railroad systems subjected to embarrassment
and annoyance by the idiosyncrasies of an ignorant but cheerful
sailor-man. The railroad resolved to submit no longer to such caprice. A
middleweight of renown was imported, who