I fell asleep that night on a conviction that our taste for barren reality is our chief error. If we could only believe forever, what a good world it could be--"a world of fine fabling," indeed! Also I wondered what J. Rodney Potts might have to apprehend from the leaven of fact in the fabling of Billy Durgin. CHAPTER IX HOW THE BOSS SAVED HIMSELF He whom they had, with facetious intent, called "the Boss of Little Arcady" now began to wear a mien of defiance. From being confessedly distraught, he displayed, as the days went by, a spiritual uplift that fell but little short of arrogance. He did not permit any reason to be revealed for this marked change of demeanor. He was confident but secretive, serene but furtive, as one who has endured gibes for the sake of one brilliant _coup_. This apparently causeless change permeated even to the columns of the _Argus_. It had been observed by more than one of us that these had of late suffered from the depression of their editor. Their general tone had been negative. Now they spoke in a lightsome tone of self-sufficiency. They were gay, even jaunty. It was in this very epoch that the verse was born which for many years sang blithely from the top of the first column--sang of Denney's public-spirited optimism as to Slocum County and the Little Country. Keep your eye on Slocum, She's all right! Her skies are clear and full of cheer, And all her prospects bright. As pointing more specifically to the incubus of Potts, there was this:-- "Lots of people are saying that we have met our Waterloo. They forget that Waterloo was a _victory_ as well as a defeat. Two men met it, and the name of one was Wellington. Look it up in your encyclopaedia." But the faction of Potts, it should be noted, saw no reason to be impressed by a vaunting so vague. It had not tempered its hopefulness. Its idol was jubilant, careless as a schoolboy, babbling but sober. The _Banner_ still challenged the world with its page-wide line: "Potts Forever! Potts the Coming Man!"