"That will do," I said severely. "Remember there is a gentleman present"
"THE BOOK OF COLONEL POTTS."
[CHAPTER I]
HOW THE BOSS WON HIS TITLE
Late last Thursday evening one Jonas Rodney Potts, better known to this community as "Upright" Potts, stumbled into the mill-race, where it had providentially been left open just north of Cady's mill. Everything was going along finely until two hopeless busybodies were attracted to the spot by his screams, and fished him out. It is feared that he will recover. We withhold the names of his rescuers, although under strong temptation to publish them broadcast.—Little Arcady Argus of May 21st.
Looking back to that time from a happier present, I am filled by a genuine awe of J. Rodney Potts. Reflecting upon those benign ends which the gods chose to make him serve, I can but marvel how lightly each of us may meet and scorn a casual Potts, unrecking his gracious and predestined office in the play of Fate.
Of the present—to me—supreme drama of the Little Country, I can only say that the gods had selected their agent with a cunning so flawless that suspicion of his portents could not well have been aroused in one lacking discernment like unto the gods' very own. So trivially, so utterly, so pitiably casual, to eyes of the flesh, was this Potts of Little Arcady, from his immortal soul to the least item of his inferior raiment!
Thus craftily are we fooled by the Lords of Destiny, whose caprice it is to affect remoteness from us and a lofty unconcern for our poor little doings.
There is bitterness in the lines of that Argus paragraph, and a flippant incivility might be read between them by the least discerning.