A MAD PRANK OF THE GODS
A week after the publication of that blithe bit of acrimony which opens this tale, Colonel J. Rodney Potts, recreated and natty in a new summer suit of alpaca, his hat freshly ironed, sued the town of Little Arcady for ten thousand dollar damages to his person and announced his candidacy at the ensuing election for the honorable office of Judge of Slocum County. He did this at the earnest solicitation of his many friends, in whose hands he had placed himself,—at least so read his card of announcement in the Banner, our other paper. He did not name these solicitous friends; but it was an easy suspicion that they were the Democratic leaders, who thought by this means to draw votes from the Republican candidate to the advantage of their own, who, otherwise, was conceded to have no hope of election in a county overwhelmingly Republican.
It may be told with adequate confidence that Westley Keyts was not of their number. As to the damage suit, Westley found it unthinkable that Potts could deteriorate ten thousand dollars worth and still walk the earth. Indeed, he believed, and uttered a few rough words to express it, that ten dollars would be an excessive valuation even if Potts were utterly destroyed.
Being an earnest soul, Westley had taken the Potts affair very seriously. He made it a point to encounter the Colonel on an early day and to address him on Main Street in tones that lacked the least affectation of suavity or diplomatic guile. He had seen diplomacy tried and found wretchedly wanting. He would have no more of it ever. Like the straightaway man he was, he went to the meat of the matter.
"You squandered that hundred dollars we give you to git out of town on," he burst forth to Potts, breathing with an ominous difficulty.
"You just wait till you hear the worst of it," answered Potts, as he confidingly dusted the shoulder of Westley's coat. "The worst of it is I had over twelve dollars of my own money that I'd saved up—you know how hard it is to save money in these little towns—well, that went, too, every cent of it!"
It was admitted by witnesses competent to form an opinion that Westley's contorted face, his troubled breathing, his manner of stepping back, and the curious writhing of his stout arms, all encouraged a supposition that he might be contemplating immediate violence upon the person of Potts. At all events, this view was taken by the aggrieved and puzzled Colonel, who fled through the Boston Cash Store and, by means of a rear exit from that emporium, gained the office of Truman Baird, Justice of the Peace, where he swore to a legal document which averred that "the said Jonas R. Potts" was "in fear of immediate and great bodily harm, which he has reasonable cause to believe will be inflicted upon him by the said Westley Keyts."
The majesty of the law being thus invoked, Westley was put under a good and sufficient bond to refrain from "in any manner of attacking or molesting the said Potts, against the statutes therein made and provided, and against the peace and dignity of the State of Illinois."
A proceeding so official somewhat dampened the fires of Mr. Keyts. He was a citizen, law-abiding by intention, with a patriot's esteem for government. It had merely not occurred to him that the summary extinction of Potts could be a performance at all incompatible with the peace and dignity of the great commonwealth to which he was at heart loyal. Being convinced otherwise, he abode grimly by the statutes therein made and provided. Nevertheless he returned to his shop and proceeded to cut up a quarter of beef with an energy of concentration and a ruthlessness of fury that caused Potts to shudder as he passed the door sometime later. By such demeanor, also, were the bondsmen of Westley—the first flush of their righteous enthusiasm faded—greatly disturbed. They agreed that he ought to be watched closely by day, and they even debated the wisdom of sitting up nights with him for a time, turn by turn. But their charge dissuaded them from this precaution. He expended his first vicious fury usefully upon his stock in trade, 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.