Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/277

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IN WHICH SOMETHING MUST BE DONE
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know what it shall be. I believe Solon is often quite as uncertain, but he will never confess this, so that talk with him under such circumstances stimulates if it does not sustain.

I put Miss Caroline's difficulties before him. As any common catalogue of troubles will not provoke Solon from a happy unconcern which is temperamental, I spared no details in my recital, and I observed at length that my listener was truly aroused to the bad way in which Miss Caroline found herself. He sat forward in his chair, rested one elbow upon his untidy desk, and for several moments of silence jabbed an inky pen rhythmically into the largest rutabaga ever grown in Slocum County. At last he sat back and gazed upon me distantly from inspired eyes. Then, with his characteristic enthusiasm, he exclaimed:

"Something will have to be done!"

"Wonderful!" I murmured. "Here I've worried over the thing for two months, studied it in court, studied it in my office, studied it in bed—and couldn't make a thing out of it. All at once I am guided to a welling fount of wisdom, and the thing is solved in a flash. Solon, you dazzle me! Denney forever!"

"Now, don't be funny, Calvin—I mean, don't try to be—" but I arose to go.

"You've solved it, Solon. Something must be done. There's the difference between intuition and mere clumsy ratiocination. In another month I might