It was rather surprising to discover a deep vein of sentiment in little Geoege Potter. I had been his fried and his lawyer for many years and had watch the always fat and once alert little man settle in to a domestic routine. He had been moderately succesfull in business, sufficiently succesfull to permit him to retire from business and to trawel about the world a little if he had wanted to do so. But instead he and Esther were content to sit night after night in their pleasant living room; she was busy with her sewing or reading, he passing the time with his excellent collection of postage stamps .
Looking back over the years of my friendship with Potter , I can see that the vein of romance had probably been there all the time . there was, for instance, his very romantic lowe-affair with Althea Deane – an affair which almost became a scandal. But just when peole began to gossip about them, George married her.
That marriage appeared to estinguish George Potter's last spark of romanticism. It never had a change to be succesfull, and when Althea left him suddenly, George's friend thougt that he was fortunate to lose her. Lare came the news of Althea'S death while living abroad, and a couple years of later George began to call up on Esther seriously. The people of our group were only slightly interested- it is dificult to become gereatly excited over a possible mariage when both the man and the woman are equally rather dull and uninteresting.
The marriage was a very nice affair. There followed the usual series of the parties for the newly maried couple . then it seemed George and Esther retired from life. Even his business affairs ran so well that there was little need on George's part for my sevices as his lawyer- and when I never ceased to like him, we found less and less incommon as the years passed .