"What did he say?" I asked of Eustace as he came up. "It was exceedingly distasteful, Major." Eustace was not a little perturbed by the encounter. "He read every word of that disgusting article in the _Argus_ and then he begged me to go into that Skeyhan's drinking-place with him and have a glass of liquor. I said very sharply, 'Colonel Potts, I have never known the taste of liquor in my whole life nor used tobacco in any form.' At that he looked at me in the utmost astonishment and said: 'Bless my soul! _Really?_ Young man, don't you put it off another day--life is awful uncertain.' 'Why, Colonel,' I said, '_that_ isn't any way to talk,' but he simply tore down the street, saying that I was taking great chances." "And now he is reading his piece to Barney Skeyhan!" I groaned. "Rum is the scourge of our American civilization," remarked Eustace, warmly. "Barney Skeyhan's rum would scourge anybody's civilization," I said. "Of course I meant _all_ civilization," suggested Eustace, in polite help to my lame understanding. Precisely at nine o'clock Potts issued from Skeyhan's, bearing his bag, cane, and _Argus_ as before. He looked up and down the quiet street interestedly, then crossed over to Hermann Hoffmuller's, another establishment in which our civilization was especially menaced. He was followed cordially by five of Little Arcady's lesser citizens, who had obviously sustained the relation of guests to him at Skeyhan's. In company with Westley Keyts and Eubanks, I watched this procession from the windows of the City Hotel. Solon Denney chanced to pass at the moment, and we hailed him. "Oh, I'll soon fix _that_," said Solon, confidently. "Don't you worry!" And forthwith he sent Billy Durgin, who works in the City Hotel, to Hoffmuller's. He was to remind Colonel Potts that his train left at eleven-eight. Billy returned with news. Potts was reading the piece to Hoffmuller and a number of his patrons. Further, he had bought, and the crowd was then consuming, the two fly-specked bottles of champagne which Hoffmuller had kept back of his bar, one on either side of a stuffed owl, since the day he began business eleven years before. Billy also brought two messages to Solon: one from Potts that he had been mistaken about the attitude of Little Arcady toward himself--that he was seeing this more clearly every minute. The other was from Hoffmuller. Solon Denney was to know that some people might be just as good as other people who thought themselves a lot better, and would he please not take some shingles off a man's roof? Solon, ever the incorrigible optimist, said, "Of course I might have waited till he was on the train to give him the money; but don't worry, he'll be ready enough to go when the 'bus starts." I felt unable to share his confidence. That presentiment had for the moment corrupted my natural hopefulness.