Keeping Up with William / In which the Honorable Socrates Potter Talks of the Relative Merits of Sense Common and Preferred

TO THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE AND BELGIUM—MADE FATHERLESS BY WILLIAMISM—WHOSE WRONGS HAVE ENLISTED THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AGAINST THE MISLED HOSTS OF GERMANY, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND THE PROCEEDS OF ITS SALE.
CONTENTS

The new year of 1918 was not a month old the day I went up to Connecticut to see the Honorable Socrates Potter. I found the famous country lawyer sitting in the very same chair from which, seven years ago, he had told me the story of keeping up with Lizzie. His feet rested peacefully on a table in front of him as he sat reading a law book. Logs were burning in the fireplace. A spaniel dog lay dozing on a rug in front of it. What a delightful flavor of old times and good tobacco was in that inner office of his—with its portraits of Lincoln and his war cabinet, of Silas Wright and Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate and Charles Sumner, with its old rifle and powder horn hanging above the modest mantel and its cases of worn law books! Beyond the closed door were busy clerks and clicking typewriters, for Mr. Potter's business had grown to large proportions, but here was peace and the atmosphere of deliberation. There was never any haste in this small factory of opinions.
“Hello! Have you come for another book?” he asked.
“Always looking for another book,” I answered. “It's about time that you got into this big fight between Democracy and—”
“Deviltry,” he interrupted with a stern look. “By thunder I've offered to take up the sword but they say I'm too old to fight. I don't believe it. My great grandfather fought at Lexington when he was sixty-four.”
“You can do more good with some conversation than you could with a sword or a gun,” I urged. “I've come up here to touch the button and now you're expected to say something for the boys at the front and the folks at home. Just turn your search-light on the general situation.”
“Well, I have quite a stock of shrapnel and liquid fire for the rear line of the Germans,” he began. “My searchlight is a modest kind of a lantern but we'll see what we can do with it.