KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM
In Which the Honorable Socrates Potter Talks of the Relative Merits of Sense Common and Preferred
By Irving Bacheller
Author of Keeping Up With Lizzie. The Light In the Clearing, Etc.
With Cartoons by Gaar Williams
1918
TO THE CHILDREN OF FRANCE AND BELGIUM—MADE FATHERLESS BY WILLIAMISM—WHOSE WRONGS HAVE ENLISTED THE KINGDOM OF HEAVEN AGAINST THE MISLED HOSTS OF GERMANY, I DEDICATE THIS BOOK AND THE PROCEEDS OF ITS SALE.
KEEPING UP WITH WILLIAM
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.—WHICH OPENS FIRE ON THE EXACTING INDUSTRY OF SUPERING
CHAPTER II.—WHICH TEACHES THAT ONE SHOULD NEVER HITCH HIS CONSCIENCE TO
CHAPTER III.—WHICH PRESENTS THE STORY OF THE SMOTHERED SON
CHAPTER IV.—WHICH HANDS OUT SOME SOME COMMON TO THE SUPERERS IN AMERICA
CHAPTER V. WHICH DROPS A FEW ROUNDS OF SHRAPNEL ON THE HUNS IN AMERICA
CHAPTER VI.—WHICH IS MOSTLY FOR THE BOYS OF OUR ARMY
CHAPTER I.—WHICH OPENS FIRE ON THE EXACTING INDUSTRY OF SUPERING
The new year of 1918 was not a month old the day I went up to Connecticut to see the Honorable Socrates Potter. I found the famous country lawyer sitting in the very same chair from which, seven years ago, he had told me the story of keeping up with Lizzie. His feet rested peacefully on a table in front of him as he sat reading a law book. Logs were burning in the fireplace. A spaniel dog lay dozing on a rug in front of it. What a delightful flavor of old times and good tobacco was in that inner office of his—with its portraits of Lincoln and his war cabinet, of Silas Wright and Daniel Webster and Rufus Choate and Charles Sumner, with its old rifle and powder horn hanging above the modest mantel and its cases of worn law books! Beyond the closed door were busy clerks and clicking typewriters, for Mr. Potter's business had grown to large proportions, but here was peace and the atmosphere of deliberation. There was