Page:Wilson - The Boss of Little Arcady (1905).djvu/82

with knife and saw and cleaver, and thereafter he was but petulant or sarcastic.

"I had the right of it," he insisted. "The only way to do with a person like him was to git your feathers and your kittle of tar cooked up all nice and gooey and git Potts on the ground and make a believer of him right there and then!" This he followed by his pointed reflection upon the administrative talents of Solon Denney—"A hand of mush in a glove of the same!" When listeners were not by, he would mutter it to himself in sinister gutturals.

Nor was he alone in this spirit of dissatisfaction with Solon. The too-trustful editor of the Argus was frankly derided. He was a Boss at whom they laughed openly. They waited, however, with interest for the subsequent issues of this paper.

The Banner that week contained the following bit of news:—

DASTARDLY ASSAULT IN BROAD DAYLIGHT

Early last Thursday evening, as Colonel J. Rodney Potts, dean of the Slocum County bar, was enjoying a quiet stroll along our beautiful river bank near Cady's mill, he was set upon by a gang of ruffians and would have been foully dealt with but for his vigorous resistance. Being a man of splendid proportions and a giant's strength, the Colonel was making gallant headway against the cowardly miscreants when his foot slipped and he was precipitated into the chilling waters of the mill-race at a point where the city fathers have allowed it to remain uncovered. Seeing their victim plunged into a watery grave, as they thought, the thugs took to their heels. The Colonel extricated himself from his perilous plight, by dint of herculean strength, and started to