“Oh, I could compose an Iliad, now that I know you're both happy,” said he.
“Betsey did it!” Florence exclaimed. “She gave me courage.”
“Poor Betsey!” said Dan'l W. “You know, her grandfather died a few weeks ago an' left her his fortune, an' she's dreadfully grieved about it because her beau, young Socrates Potter, has said that he would never marry a rich woman. The boys are gettin' awfully noble an' inhuman. I'm glad that Havelock has reformed.”
CHAPTER XI
THAT was the end of the interview, and of the Websterian age in Griggsby. It still lives, the Websterian impulse; but, like many other things, it has gone West, although there are certain relics of it in every part of the land. Imaginary greatness now expresses itself in luxury instead of eloquence here in the East, and every community is in sore need of a Florence Dunbar.
Our citizens had begun to fear and respect The Little Corporal. Special officers with a commission from its editor paroled the streets. Our leading lights ceased to enter the public bar-rooms. Midnight brawls and revels were discontinued. The poker-players conducted their game with the utmost secrecy and good order. The Young Men's Social Improvement League was organized. New justices of the peace were elected. The first time that Thurst Giles got drunk and beat his wife he was promptly put in jail at hard labor for a long term, while the man who had sold the whisky lost his license. A well-known and highly respected inn-keeper, at whose bar a minor had bought drinks, was compelled to give a bond against any repetition of the offense or take a bitter and ruinous draft of publicity.
Every week The Little Corporal swept over the town like a wholesome rain cloud, and refreshing showers of wit and lightning shafts of ridicule fell out of it, and the people laughed and thought and applauded. The poker sharp and the ten-dollar man were praised as philanthropists, while the “trottin'-hoss” and the rum-scented brand of Websterian dignity were riddled with good-natured wit, and people began to look askance at them. The perennial springs of maudlin blasphemy and obscenity had begun to dry up, and their greatness had departed. The common drunkards moved out of the village. The resounding Websterian coterie took their grog in wholesome fear and the strictest privacy.
“How are you?” one was heard to ask another on the street.