I knew that he sought my letter.  Egress from the City Hotel may be achieved, when desirable, by a side door, and I saw no more of Potts that day.  I believe my letter spoke of him as an able and graceful pleader, meriting judicial honors, or something of that sort.  I had forgotten its exact words, but I did not wish to hear Potts read them.  So I fled to spend the remainder of that eventful day quietly among rosebushes and tender, budding hyacinths, unspotted of the world, receiving, however, occasional bulletins of the orgy from passers-by.  From these and sundry narratives gleaned the following day, I was able to trace the later hours of this scandalous saturnalia.

By six o’clock Potts had spent all his money.  By six-fifteen this fact could no longer be concealed, and such of his following as had not already fallen by the wayside crept, one by one, to rest.  They left the Colonel dreamily, murmurously happy in a chair at the end of the City Hotel bar.

Here, he was discovered about six-thirty by Eustace Eubanks, who had incautiously thought to rebuke him.

“For shame, Colonel Potts!” began Eustace, seeking to fix the uncertain eyes with his finger of scorn.  “For shame to have squandered all that money for rum.  Don’t you know, sir, that a hundred and sixty thousand men die yearly in our land from the effects of rum?”

“Hundred sixty thousand!” mused the Colonel, in polite amazement.  “Well, well, figures can’t lie!  What of it?”

“You have dishonestly spent that money given to you in sacred trust.”

This seemed to arouse Potts, and he surveyed Eubanks with more curiosity than delight.  He arose, buttoned his coat, fixed his hat firmly upon his head, and took up his stick and bag.  He put upon Eustace a glance of dignified urbanity, as he spoke.

“I don’t know who you are, sir,—­never saw you before in my life,—­but I have done what every good citizen should do.  I have spent my money at home.  This is a cheap place, full of cheap men.  What the town needs, sir, is capital—­capital to develop its attributes and industries.  It needs more men with the public spirit of J. Rodney, sir.  I bid you good evening!  Ah, this has been indeed a beautiful day!”

He walked out.  Those who watched him until he turned out of Main Street into Fourth, and so toward the river, aver—­marvelling duly at his powers of resistance—­that the head of Potts was erect, his gaze bent aloft, and his gait one of perfect directness save that he stepped a little high.

I like to think of him in that last walk.  I like to bring up as nearly as I can his intense exaltation.  It had been a beautiful day.  And now, as he looked aloft, walking with an automatic precision, his eyes must have beheld glorious vistas, in which he rode a chariot of triumph at the head of a splendid procession, while his ears rang with chaste tributes to his worth trumpeted by outriding heralds.  And the good earth was firm beneath his tread, stretching broadly off for him to walk upon and behold his apotheosis.