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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1213 ***
+THE MAN THAT CORRUPTED HADLEYBURG
+
+
+I.
+
+
+It was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town
+in all the region round about. It had kept that reputation unsmirched
+during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its
+possessions. It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its
+perpetuation, that it began to teach the principles of honest dealing to
+its babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple of
+their culture thenceforward through all the years devoted to their
+education. Also, throughout the formative years temptations were kept
+out of the way of the young people, so that their honesty could have
+every chance to harden and solidify, and become a part of their very
+bone. The neighbouring towns were jealous of this honourable supremacy,
+and affected to sneer at Hadleyburg’s pride in it and call it vanity;
+but all the same they were obliged to acknowledge that Hadleyburg was in
+reality an incorruptible town; and if pressed they would also
+acknowledge that the mere fact that a young man hailed from Hadleyburg
+was all the recommendation he needed when he went forth from his natal
+town to seek for responsible employment.
+
+But at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend
+a passing stranger--possibly without knowing it, certainly without
+caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not a rap
+for strangers or their opinions. Still, it would have been well to make
+an exception in this one’s case, for he was a bitter man, and
+revengeful. All through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his
+injury in mind, and gave all his leisure moments to trying to invent a
+compensating satisfaction for it. He contrived many plans, and all of
+them were good, but none of them was quite sweeping enough: the poorest
+of them would hurt a great many individuals, but what he wanted was a
+plan which would comprehend the entire town, and not let so much as one
+person escape unhurt. At last he had a fortunate idea, and when it fell
+into his brain it lit up his whole head with an evil joy. He began to
+form a plan at once, saying to himself “That is the thing to do--I will
+corrupt the town.”
+
+Six months later he went to Hadleyburg, and arrived in a buggy at the
+house of the old cashier of the bank about ten at night. He got a sack
+out of the buggy, shouldered it, and staggered with it through the
+cottage yard, and knocked at the door. A woman’s voice said “Come in,”
+and he entered, and set his sack behind the stove in the parlour, saying
+politely to the old lady who sat reading the “Missionary Herald” by the
+lamp:
+
+“Pray keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb you. There--now it is
+pretty well concealed; one would hardly know it was there. Can I see
+your husband a moment, madam?”
+
+No, he was gone to Brixton, and might not return before morning.
+
+“Very well, madam, it is no matter. I merely wanted to leave that sack
+in his care, to be delivered to the rightful owner when he shall be
+found. I am a stranger; he does not know me; I am merely passing through
+the town to-night to discharge a matter which has been long in my mind.
+My errand is now completed, and I go pleased and a little proud, and you
+will never see me again. There is a paper attached to the sack which
+will explain everything. Good-night, madam.”
+
+The old lady was afraid of the mysterious big stranger, and was glad to
+see him go. But her curiosity was roused, and she went straight to the
+sack and brought away the paper. It began as follows:
+
+   “TO BE PUBLISHED, or, the right man sought out by private
+   inquiry--either will answer. This sack contains gold coin weighing a
+   hundred and sixty pounds four ounces--”
+
+“Mercy on us, and the door not locked!”
+
+Mrs. Richards flew to it all in a tremble and locked it, then pulled down
+the window-shades and stood frightened, worried, and wondering if there
+was anything else she could do toward making herself and the money more
+safe. She listened awhile for burglars, then surrendered to curiosity,
+and went back to the lamp and finished reading the paper:
+
+ “I am a foreigner, and am presently going back to my own country, to
+ remain there permanently. I am grateful to America for what I have
+ received at her hands during my long stay under her flag; and to one
+ of her citizens--a citizen of Hadleyburg--I am especially grateful for
+ a great kindness done me a year or two ago. Two great kindnesses in
+ fact. I will explain. I was a gambler. I say I WAS. I was a ruined
+ gambler. I arrived in this village at night, hungry and without a
+ penny. I asked for help--in the dark; I was ashamed to beg in the
+ light. I begged of the right man. He gave me twenty dollars--that is
+ to say, he gave me life, as I considered it. He also gave me fortune;
+ for out of that money I have made myself rich at the gaming-table. And
+ finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with me to this
+ day, and has at last conquered me; and in conquering has saved the
+ remnant of my morals: I shall gamble no more. Now I have no idea who
+ that man was, but I want him found, and I want him to have this money,
+ to give away, throw away, or keep, as he pleases. It is merely my way
+ of testifying my gratitude to him. If I could stay, I would find him
+ myself; but no matter, he will be found. This is an honest town, an
+ incorruptible town, and I know I can trust it without fear. This man
+ can be identified by the remark which he made to me; I feel persuaded
+ that he will remember it.
+
+ “And now my plan is this: If you prefer to conduct the inquiry
+ privately, do so. Tell the contents of this present writing to any
+ one who is likely to be the right man. If he shall answer, ‘I am the
+ man; the remark I made was so-and-so,’ apply the test--to wit: open
+ the sack, and in it you will find a sealed envelope containing that
+ remark. If the remark mentioned by the candidate tallies with it,
+ give him the money, and ask no further questions, for he is certainly
+ the right man.
+
+ “But if you shall prefer a public inquiry, then publish this present
+ writing in the local paper--with these instructions added, to wit:
+ Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear at the town-hall at
+ eight in the evening (Friday), and hand his remark, in a sealed
+ envelope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess (if he will be kind enough to act);
+ and let Mr. Burgess there and then destroy the seals of the sack, open
+ it, and see if the remark is correct: if correct, let the money be
+ delivered, with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus
+ identified.”
+
+Mrs. Richards sat down, gently quivering with excitement, and was soon
+lost in thinkings--after this pattern: “What a strange thing it is!
+... And what a fortune for that kind man who set his bread afloat upon
+the waters!... If it had only been my husband that did it!--for we are
+so poor, so old and poor!...” Then, with a sigh--“But it was not my
+Edward; no, it was not he that gave a stranger twenty dollars. It is a
+pity too; I see it now...” Then, with a shudder--“But it is _gamblers_’
+money! the wages of sin; we couldn’t take it; we couldn’t touch it.
+I don’t like to be near it; it seems a defilement.” She moved to a
+farther chair... “I wish Edward would come, and take it to the bank; a
+burglar might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be here all alone
+with it.”
+
+At eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife was saying “I am
+_so_ glad you’ve come!” he was saying, “I am so tired--tired clear out;
+it is dreadful to be poor, and have to make these dismal journeys at my
+time of life. Always at the grind, grind, grind, on a salary--another
+man’s slave, and he sitting at home in his slippers, rich and
+comfortable.”
+
+“I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; but be comforted; we
+have our livelihood; we have our good name--”
+
+“Yes, Mary, and that is everything. Don’t mind my talk--it’s just a
+moment’s irritation and doesn’t mean anything. Kiss me--there, it’s
+all gone now, and I am not complaining any more. What have you been
+getting? What’s in the sack?”
+
+Then his wife told him the great secret. It dazed him for a moment;
+then he said:
+
+“It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds? Why, Mary, it’s for-ty thou-sand
+dollars--think of it--a whole fortune! Not ten men in this village are
+worth that much. Give me the paper.”
+
+He skimmed through it and said:
+
+“Isn’t it an adventure! Why, it’s a romance; it’s like the impossible
+things one reads about in books, and never sees in life.” He was well
+stirred up now; cheerful, even gleeful. He tapped his old wife on the
+cheek, and said humorously, “Why, we’re rich, Mary, rich; all we’ve got
+to do is to bury the money and burn the papers. If the gambler ever
+comes to inquire, we’ll merely look coldly upon him and say: ‘What is
+this nonsense you are talking? We have never heard of you and your sack
+of gold before;’ and then he would look foolish, and--”
+
+“And in the meantime, while you are running on with your jokes, the
+money is still here, and it is fast getting along toward burglar-time.”
+
+“True. Very well, what shall we do--make the inquiry private? No,
+not that; it would spoil the romance. The public method is better.
+Think what a noise it will make! And it will make all the other towns
+jealous; for no stranger would trust such a thing to any town but
+Hadleyburg, and they know it. It’s a great card for us. I must get to
+the printing-office now, or I shall be too late.”
+
+“But stop--stop--don’t leave me here alone with it, Edward!”
+
+But he was gone. For only a little while, however. Not far from his
+own house he met the editor--proprietor of the paper, and gave him the
+document, and said “Here is a good thing for you, Cox--put it in.”
+
+“It may be too late, Mr. Richards, but I’ll see.”
+
+At home again, he and his wife sat down to talk the charming mystery
+over; they were in no condition for sleep. The first question was, Who
+could the citizen have been who gave the stranger the twenty dollars?
+It seemed a simple one; both answered it in the same breath--
+
+“Barclay Goodson.”
+
+“Yes,” said Richards, “he could have done it, and it would have been
+like him, but there’s not another in the town.”
+
+“Everybody will grant that, Edward--grant it privately, anyway.
+For six months, now, the village has been its own proper self once
+more--honest, narrow, self-righteous, and stingy.”
+
+“It is what he always called it, to the day of his death--said it right
+out publicly, too.”
+
+“Yes, and he was hated for it.”
+
+“Oh, of course; but he didn’t care. I reckon he was the best-hated man
+among us, except the Reverend Burgess.”
+
+“Well, Burgess deserves it--he will never get another congregation
+here. Mean as the town is, it knows how to estimate _him_. Edward,
+doesn’t it seem odd that the stranger should appoint Burgess to deliver
+the money?”
+
+“Well, yes--it does. That is--that is--”
+
+“Why so much that-_is_-ing? Would _you_ select him?”
+
+“Mary, maybe the stranger knows him better than this village does.”
+
+“Much _that_ would help Burgess!”
+
+The husband seemed perplexed for an answer; the wife kept a steady eye
+upon him, and waited. Finally Richards said, with the hesitancy of one
+who is making a statement which is likely to encounter doubt,
+
+“Mary, Burgess is not a bad man.”
+
+His wife was certainly surprised.
+
+“Nonsense!” she exclaimed.
+
+“He is not a bad man. I know. The whole of his unpopularity had its
+foundation in that one thing--the thing that made so much noise.”
+
+“That ‘one thing,’ indeed! As if that ‘one thing’ wasn’t enough, all by
+itself.”
+
+“Plenty. Plenty. Only he wasn’t guilty of it.”
+
+“How you talk! Not guilty of it! Everybody knows he _was_ guilty.”
+
+“Mary, I give you my word--he was innocent.”
+
+“I can’t believe it and I don’t. How do you know?”
+
+“It is a confession. I am ashamed, but I will make it. I was the only
+man who knew he was innocent. I could have saved him, and--and--well,
+you know how the town was wrought up--I hadn’t the pluck to do it. It
+would have turned everybody against me. I felt mean, ever so mean; but
+I didn’t dare; I hadn’t the manliness to face that.”
+
+Mary looked troubled, and for a while was silent. Then she said
+stammeringly:
+
+“I--I don’t think it would have done for you to--to--One
+mustn’t--er--public opinion--one has to be so careful--so--” It was
+a difficult road, and she got mired; but after a little she got
+started again. “It was a great pity, but--Why, we couldn’t afford it,
+Edward--we couldn’t indeed. Oh, I wouldn’t have had you do it for
+anything!”
+
+“It would have lost us the good-will of so many people, Mary; and
+then--and then--”
+
+“What troubles me now is, what _he_ thinks of us, Edward.”
+
+“He? _He_ doesn’t suspect that I could have saved him.”
+
+“Oh,” exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, “I am glad of that. As
+long as he doesn’t know that you could have saved him, he--he--well
+that makes it a great deal better. Why, I might have known he didn’t
+know, because he is always trying to be friendly with us, as little
+encouragement as we give him. More than once people have twitted me
+with it. There’s the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Harknesses,
+they take a mean pleasure in saying ‘_Your friend_ Burgess,’ because
+they know it pesters me. I wish he wouldn’t persist in liking us so; I
+can’t think why he keeps it up.”
+
+“I can explain it. It’s another confession. When the thing was new and
+hot, and the town made a plan to ride him on a rail, my conscience
+hurt me so that I couldn’t stand it, and I went privately and gave him
+notice, and he got out of the town and stayed out till it was safe to
+come back.”
+
+“Edward! If the town had found it out--”
+
+“_Don’t_! It scares me yet, to think of it. I repented of it the minute
+it was done; and I was even afraid to tell you lest your face might
+betray it to somebody. I didn’t sleep any that night, for worrying. But
+after a few days I saw that no one was going to suspect me, and after
+that I got to feeling glad I did it. And I feel glad yet, Mary--glad
+through and through.”
+
+“So do I, now, for it would have been a dreadful way to treat him.
+Yes, I’m glad; for really you did owe him that, you know. But, Edward,
+suppose it should come out yet, some day!”
+
+“It won’t.”
+
+“Why?”
+
+“Because everybody thinks it was Goodson.”
+
+“Of course they would!”
+
+“Certainly. And of course _he_ didn’t care. They persuaded poor old
+Sawlsberry to go and charge it on him, and he went blustering over
+there and did it. Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting
+for a place on him that he could despise the most; then he says, ‘So
+you are the Committee of Inquiry, are you?’ Sawlsberry said that was
+about what he was. ‘H’m. Do they require particulars, or do you reckon
+a kind of a _general_ answer will do?’ ‘If they require particulars,
+I will come back, Mr. Goodson; I will take the general answer first.’
+‘Very well, then, tell them to go to hell--I reckon that’s general
+enough. And I’ll give you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come back
+for the particulars, fetch a basket to carry what is left of yourself
+home in.’”
+
+“Just like Goodson; it’s got all the marks. He had only one vanity; he
+thought he could give advice better than any other person.”
+
+“It settled the business, and saved us, Mary. The subject was dropped.”
+
+“Bless you, I’m not doubting _that_.”
+
+Then they took up the gold-sack mystery again, with strong interest.
+Soon the conversation began to suffer breaks--interruptions caused by
+absorbed thinkings. The breaks grew more and more frequent. At last
+Richards lost himself wholly in thought. He sat long, gazing vacantly
+at the floor, and by-and-by he began to punctuate his thoughts with
+little nervous movements of his hands that seemed to indicate vexation.
+Meantime his wife too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and
+her movements were beginning to show a troubled discomfort. Finally
+Richards got up and strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his
+hands through his hair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having
+a bad dream. Then he seemed to arrive at a definite purpose; and
+without a word he put on his hat and passed quickly out of the house.
+His wife sat brooding, with a drawn face, and did not seem to be aware
+that she was alone. Now and then she murmured, “Lead us not into t ...
+but--but--we are so poor, so poor!... Lead us not into.... Ah, who
+would be hurt by it?--and no one would ever know.... Lead us....” The
+voice died out in mumblings. After a little she glanced up and muttered
+in a half-frightened, half-glad way--
+
+“He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too late--too late.... Maybe
+not--maybe there is still time.” She rose and stood thinking, nervously
+clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame,
+and she said, out of a dry throat, “God forgive me--it’s awful to think
+such things--but.... Lord, how we are made--how strangely we are made!”
+
+She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by
+the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with her hands, and fondled them
+lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes. She fell
+into fits of absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter “If
+we had only waited!--oh, if we had only waited a little, and not been
+in such a hurry!”
+
+Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all about
+the strange thing that had happened, and they had talked it over
+eagerly, and guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the
+town who could have helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as
+twenty dollars. Then there was a pause, and the two became thoughtful
+and silent. And by- and-by nervous and fidgety. At last the wife said,
+as if to herself,
+
+“Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses ... and us ... nobody.”
+
+The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed
+wistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then he
+hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his
+wife--a sort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with
+her hand at her throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head. In
+a moment she was alone, and mumbling to herself.
+
+And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets,
+from opposite directions. They met, panting, at the foot of the
+printing-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each other’s
+face. Cox whispered:
+
+“Nobody knows about this but us?”
+
+The whispered answer was:
+
+“Not a soul--on honour, not a soul!”
+
+“If it isn’t too late to--”
+
+The men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were overtaken by
+a boy, and Cox asked,
+
+“Is that you, Johnny?”
+
+“Yes, sir.”
+
+“You needn’t ship the early mail--nor _any_ mail; wait till I tell you.”
+
+“It’s already gone, sir.”
+
+“_Gone_?” It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.
+
+“Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed to-
+day, sir--had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than common.
+I had to rush; if I had been two minutes later--”
+
+The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest.
+Neither of them spoke during ten minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed
+tone,
+
+“What possessed you to be in such a hurry, _I_ can’t make out.”
+
+The answer was humble enough:
+
+“I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too
+late. But the next time--”
+
+“Next time be hanged! It won’t come in a thousand years.”
+
+Then the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged themselves
+home with the gait of mortally stricken men. At their homes their wives
+sprang up with an eager “Well?”--then saw the answer with their eyes
+and sank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words. In
+both houses a discussion followed of a heated sort--a new thing; there
+had been discussions before, but not heated ones, not ungentle ones.
+The discussions to-night were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each
+other. Mrs. Richards said:
+
+“If you had only waited, Edward--if you had only stopped to think; but
+no, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all over
+the world.”
+
+“It _said_ publish it.”
+
+“That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked. There,
+now--is that true, or not?”
+
+“Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would
+make, and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should
+trust it so--”
+
+“Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to think,
+you would have seen that you _couldn’t_ find the right man, because he
+is in his grave, and hasn’t left chick nor child nor relation behind
+him; and as long as the money went to somebody that awfully needed it,
+and nobody would be hurt by it, and--and--”
+
+She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of some comforting
+thing to say, and presently came out with this:
+
+“But after all, Mary, it must be for the best--it must be; we know
+that. And we must remember that it was so ordered--”
+
+“Ordered! Oh, everything’s _ordered_, when a person has to find some
+way out when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was _ordered_
+that the money should come to us in this special way, and it was you
+that must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of
+Providence--and who gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it
+was--just blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and
+humble professor of--”
+
+“But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, like
+the whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop
+not a single moment to think when there’s an honest thing to be done--”
+
+“Oh, I know it, I know it--it’s been one everlasting training and
+training and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from the very
+cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it’s _artificial_
+honesty, and weak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen
+this night. God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my
+petrified and indestructible honesty until now--and now, under the very
+first big and real temptation, I--Edward, it is my belief that this
+town’s honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is a
+mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn’t a virtue in the world but
+this honesty it is so celebrated for and so conceited about; and so
+help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls
+under great temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a
+house of cards. There, now, I’ve made confession, and I feel better; I
+am a humbug, and I’ve been one all my life, without knowing it. Let no
+man call me honest again--I will not have it.”
+
+“I--Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do. It seems
+strange, too, so strange. I never could have believed it--never.”
+
+A long silence followed; both were sunk in thought. At last the wife
+looked up and said:
+
+“I know what you are thinking, Edward.”
+
+Richards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.
+
+“I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but--”
+
+“It’s no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same question myself.”
+
+“I hope so. State it.”
+
+“You were thinking, if a body could only guess out _what the remark
+was_ that Goodson made to the stranger.”
+
+“It’s perfectly true. I feel guilty and ashamed. And you?”
+
+“I’m past it. Let us make a pallet here; we’ve got to stand watch till
+the bank vault opens in the morning and admits the sack... Oh dear, oh
+dear--if we hadn’t made the mistake!”
+
+The pallet was made, and Mary said:
+
+“The open sesame--what could it have been? I do wonder what that remark
+could have been. But come; we will get to bed now.”
+
+“And sleep?”
+
+“No; think.”
+
+“Yes; think.”
+
+By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their
+reconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and toss, and
+fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which
+Goodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark
+worth forty thousand dollars, cash.
+
+The reason that the village telegraph-office was open later than
+usual that night was this: The foreman of Cox’s paper was the local
+representative of the Associated Press. One might say its honorary
+representative, for it wasn’t four times a year that he could furnish
+thirty words that would be accepted. But this time it was different.
+His despatch stating what he had caught got an instant answer:
+
+   “Send the whole thing--all the details--twelve hundred words.”
+
+A colossal order! The foreman filled the bill; and he was the proudest
+man in the State. By breakfast-time the next morning the name of
+Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal
+to the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of
+Florida; and millions and millions of people were discussing the
+stranger and his money-sack, and wondering if the right man would
+be found, and hoping some more news about the matter would come
+soon--right away.
+
+
+
+
+II.
+
+
+Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished--happy--vain.
+Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens and their
+wives went about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and
+smiling, and congratulating, and saying _this_ thing adds a new word to
+the dictionary--_Hadleyburg_, synonym for _incorruptible_--destined to
+live in dictionaries for ever! And the minor and unimportant citizens
+and their wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody
+ran to the bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon grieved and
+envious crowds began to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring
+towns; and that afternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from
+everywhere to verify the sack and its history and write the whole
+thing up anew, and make dashing free-hand pictures of the sack, and
+of Richards’s house, and the bank, and the Presbyterian church, and
+the Baptist church, and the public square, and the town-hall where the
+test would be applied and the money delivered; and damnable portraits
+of the Richardses, and Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, and the foreman,
+and Reverend Burgess, and the postmaster--and even of Jack Halliday,
+who was the loafing, good-natured, no-account, irreverent fisherman,
+hunter, boys’ friend, stray-dogs’ friend, typical “Sam Lawson” of the
+town. The little mean, smirking, oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all
+comers, and rubbed his sleek palms together pleasantly, and enlarged
+upon the town’s fine old reputation for honesty and upon this wonderful
+endorsement of it, and hoped and believed that the example would now
+spread far and wide over the American world, and be epoch-making in the
+matter of moral regeneration. And so on, and so on.
+
+By the end of a week things had quieted down again; the wild
+intoxication of pride and joy had sobered to a soft, sweet, silent
+delight--a sort of deep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces bore
+a look of peaceful, holy happiness.
+
+Then a change came. It was a gradual change; so gradual that its
+beginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were not noticed at all, except
+by Jack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of
+it, too, no matter what it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks
+about people not looking quite so happy as they did a day or two ago;
+and next he claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive
+sadness; next, that it was taking on a sick look; and finally he said
+that everybody was become so moody, thoughtful, and absent-minded that
+he could rob the meanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his
+breeches pocket and not disturb his reverie.
+
+At this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this was dropped
+at bedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head of each of the nineteen
+principal households:
+
+“Ah, what _could_ have been the remark that Goodson made?”
+
+And straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the man’s wife:
+
+“Oh, _don’t_! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put it
+away from you, for God’s sake!”
+
+But that question was wrung from those men again the next night--and
+got the same retort. But weaker.
+
+And the third night the men uttered the question yet again--with
+anguish, and absently. This time--and the following night--the wives
+fidgeted feebly, and tried to say something. But didn’t.
+
+And the night after that they found their tongues and
+responded--longingly:
+
+“Oh, if we _could_ only guess!”
+
+Halliday’s comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable
+and disparaging. He went diligently about, laughing at the town,
+individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in the
+village: it fell upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not
+even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday carried a cigar-box around
+on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and
+aimed the thing and said “Ready!--now look pleasant, please,” but
+not even this capital joke could surprise the dreary faces into any
+softening.
+
+So three weeks passed--one week was left. It was Saturday evening
+after supper. Instead of the aforetime Saturday-evening flutter and
+bustle and shopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate.
+Richards and his old wife sat apart in their little parlour--miserable
+and thinking. This was become their evening habit now: the life-long
+habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented
+chat, or receiving or paying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and
+forgotten, ages ago--two or three weeks ago; nobody talked now, nobody
+read, nobody visited--the whole village sat at home, sighing, worrying,
+silent. Trying to guess out that remark.
+
+The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at the
+superscription and the post-mark--unfamiliar, both--and tossed
+the letter on the table and resumed his might-have-beens and his
+hopeless dull miseries where he had left them off. Two or three hours
+later his wife got wearily up and was going away to bed without a
+good-night--custom now--but she stopped near the letter and eyed it
+awhile with a dead interest, then broke it open, and began to skim it
+over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back against the
+wall and his chin between his knees, heard something fall. It was his
+wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out:
+
+“Leave me alone, I am too happy. Read the letter--read it!”
+
+He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was from a
+distant State, and it said:
+
+  “I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell. I
+  have just arrived home from Mexico, and learned about that episode. Of
+  course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the
+  only person living who does know. It was GOODSON. I knew him well,
+  many years ago. I passed through your village that very night, and
+  was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him
+  make that remark to the stranger in the dark--it was in Hale Alley. He
+  and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and while smoking in his
+  house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his
+  talk--most of them in a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three
+  favourably: among these latter yourself. I say ‘favourably’--nothing
+  stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person
+  in the town--not one; but that you--I THINK he said you--am almost
+  sure--had done him a very great service once, possibly without knowing
+  the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave
+  it to you when he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the
+  citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you are
+  his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I
+  can trust to your honour and honesty, for in a citizen of Hadleyburg
+  these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to
+  reveal to you the remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right
+  man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor Goodson’s
+  debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the
+  remark ‘YOU ARE FAR FROM BEING A BAD MAN: GO, AND REFORM.’
+
+  “HOWARD L. STEPHENSON.”
+
+“Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, _oh_, so
+grateful,--kiss me, dear, it’s for ever since we kissed--and we needed
+it so--the money--and now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and
+nobody’s slave any more; it seems to me I could fly for joy.”
+
+It was a happy half-hour that the couple spent there on the settee
+caressing each other; it was the old days come again--days that had
+begun with their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger
+brought the deadly money. By-and-by the wife said:
+
+“Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor
+Goodson! I never liked him, but I love him now. And it was fine and
+beautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it.” Then, with a
+touch of reproach, “But you ought to have told _me_, Edward, you ought
+to have told your wife, you know.”
+
+“Well, I--er--well, Mary, you see--”
+
+“Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward. I always
+loved you, and now I’m proud of you. Everybody believes there was only
+one good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that
+you--Edward, why don’t you tell me?”
+
+“Well--er--er--Why, Mary, I can’t!”
+
+“You _can’t_? _Why_ can’t you?”
+
+“You see, he--well, he--he made me promise I wouldn’t.”
+
+The wife looked him over, and said, very slowly:
+
+“Made--you--promise? Edward, what do you tell me that for?”
+
+“Mary, do you think I would lie?”
+
+She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within
+his and said:
+
+“No ... no. We have wandered far enough from our bearings--God spare us
+that! In all your life you have never uttered a lie. But now--now that
+the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us, we--we--”
+She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, “Lead us not into
+temptation... I think you made the promise, Edward. Let it rest so.
+Let us keep away from that ground. Now--that is all gone by; let us he
+happy again; it is no time for clouds.”
+
+Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept
+wandering--trying to remember what the service was that he had done
+Goodson.
+
+The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy,
+Edward busy, but not so happy. Mary was planning what she would do
+with the money. Edward was trying to recall that service. At first his
+conscience was sore on account of the lie he had told Mary--if it was a
+lie. After much reflection--suppose it _was_ a lie? What then? Was it
+such a great matter? Aren’t we always _acting_ lies? Then why not tell
+them? Look at Mary--look what she had done. While he was hurrying off
+on his honest errand, what was she doing? Lamenting because the papers
+hadn’t been destroyed and the money kept. Is theft better than lying?
+
+_That_ point lost its sting--the lie dropped into the background
+and left comfort behind it. The next point came to the front: _had_
+he rendered that service? Well, here was Goodson’s own evidence as
+reported in Stephenson’s letter; there could be no better evidence
+than that--it was even _proof_ that he had rendered it. Of course. So
+that point was settled... No, not quite. He recalled with a wince that
+this unknown Mr. Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the
+performer of it was Richards or some other--and, oh dear, he had put
+Richards on his honour! He must himself decide whither that money must
+go--and Mr. Stephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he
+would go honourably and find the right one. Oh, it was odious to put a
+man in such a situation--ah, why couldn’t Stephenson have left out that
+doubt? What did he want to intrude that for?
+
+Further reflection. How did it happen that _Richards’s_ name remained
+in Stephenson’s mind as indicating the right man, and not some other
+man’s name? That looked good. Yes, that looked very good. In fact it
+went on looking better and better, straight along--until by-and-by
+it grew into positive _proof_. And then Richards put the matter at
+once out of his mind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once
+established is better left so.
+
+He was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was still one
+other detail that kept pushing itself on his notice: of course he had
+done that service--that was settled; but what _was_ that service?
+He must recall it--he would not go to sleep till he had recalled
+it; it would make his peace of mind perfect. And so he thought and
+thought. He thought of a dozen things--possible services, even
+probable services--but none of them seemed adequate, none of them
+seemed large enough, none of them seemed worth the money--worth the
+fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in his will. And besides, he
+couldn’t remember having done them, anyway. Now, then--now, then--what
+_kind_ of a service would it be that would make a man so inordinately
+grateful? Ah--the saving of his soul! That must be it. Yes, he could
+remember, now, how he once set himself the task of converting Goodson,
+and laboured at it as much as--he was going to say three months; but
+upon closer examination it shrunk to a month, then to a week, then to
+a day, then to nothing. Yes, he remembered now, and with unwelcome
+vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder and mind his own
+business--_he_ wasn’t hankering to follow Hadleyburg to heaven!
+
+So that solution was a failure--he hadn’t saved Goodson’s soul.
+Richards was discouraged. Then after a little came another idea: had
+he saved Goodson’s property? No, that wouldn’t do--he hadn’t any. His
+life? That is it! Of course. Why, he might have thought of it before.
+This time he was on the right track, sure. His imagination-mill was
+hard at work in a minute, now.
+
+Thereafter, during a stretch of two exhausting hours, he was busy
+saving Goodson’s life. He saved it in all kinds of difficult and
+perilous ways. In every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a
+certain point; then, just as he was beginning to get well persuaded
+that it had really happened, a troublesome detail would turn up which
+made the whole thing impossible. As in the matter of drowning, for
+instance. In that case he had swum out and tugged Goodson ashore in an
+unconscious state with a great crowd looking on and applauding, but
+when he had got it all thought out and was just beginning to remember
+all about it, a whole swarm of disqualifying details arrived on the
+ground: the town would have known of the circumstance, Mary would have
+known of it, it would glare like a limelight in his own memory instead
+of being an inconspicuous service which he had possibly rendered
+“without knowing its full value.” And at this point he remembered that
+he couldn’t swim anyway.
+
+Ah--_there_ was a point which he had been overlooking from the start:
+it had to be a service which he had rendered “possibly without knowing
+the full value of it.” Why, really, that ought to be an easy hunt--much
+easier than those others. And sure enough, by-and-by he found it.
+Goodson, years and years ago, came near marrying a very sweet and
+pretty girl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or other the match
+had been broken off; the girl died, Goodson remained a bachelor,
+and by-and-by became a soured one and a frank despiser of the human
+species. Soon after the girl’s death the village found out, or thought
+it had found out, that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her
+veins. Richards worked at these details a good while, and in the end
+he thought he remembered things concerning them which must have gotten
+mislaid in his memory through long neglect. He seemed to dimly remember
+that it was _he_ that found out about the negro blood; that it was he
+that told the village; that the village told Goodson where they got it;
+that he thus saved Goodson from marrying the tainted girl; that he had
+done him this great service “without knowing the full value of it,” in
+fact without knowing that he _was_ doing it; but that Goodson knew the
+value of it, and what a narrow escape he had had, and so went to his
+grave grateful to his benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to leave
+him. It was all clear and simple, now, and the more he went over it
+the more luminous and certain it grew; and at last, when he nestled to
+sleep, satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing just as if it
+had been yesterday. In fact, he dimly remembered Goodson’s _telling_
+him his gratitude once. Meantime Mary had spent six thousand dollars on
+a new house for herself and a pair of slippers for her pastor, and then
+had fallen peacefully to rest.
+
+That same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to each
+of the other principal citizens--nineteen letters in all. No two of
+the envelopes were alike, and no two of the superscriptions were in
+the same hand, but the letters inside were just like each other in
+every detail but one. They were exact copies of the letter received by
+Richards--handwriting and all--and were all signed by Stephenson, but
+in place of Richards’s name each receiver’s own name appeared.
+
+All night long eighteen principal citizens did what their caste-brother
+Richards was doing at the same time--they put in their energies trying
+to remember what notable service it was that they had unconsciously
+done Barclay Goodson. In no case was it a holiday job; still they
+succeeded.
+
+And while they were at this work, which was difficult, their wives put
+in the night spending the money, which was easy. During that one night
+the nineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand dollars each out
+of the forty thousand in the sack--a hundred and thirty-three thousand
+altogether.
+
+Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. He noticed that
+the faces of the nineteen chief citizens and their wives bore that
+expression of peaceful and holy happiness again. He could not
+understand it, neither was he able to invent any remarks about it
+that could damage it or disturb it. And so it was his turn to be
+dissatisfied with life. His private guesses at the reasons for the
+happiness failed in all instances, upon examination. When he met
+Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy in her face, he said to
+himself, “Her cat has had kittens”--and went and asked the cook; it
+was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but did not know
+the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the face of
+“Shadbelly” Billson (village nickname), he was sure some neighbour of
+Billson’s had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this had not
+happened. The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates’s face could mean but
+one thing--he was a mother-in-law short; it was another mistake. “And
+Pinkerton--Pinkerton--he has collected ten cents that he thought he
+was going to lose.” And so on, and so on. In some cases the guesses
+had to remain in doubt, in the others they proved distinct errors. In
+the end Halliday said to himself, “Anyway it roots up that there’s
+nineteen Hadleyburg families temporarily in heaven: I don’t know how it
+happened; I only know Providence is off duty to-day.”
+
+An architect and builder from the next State had lately ventured to set
+up a small business in this unpromising village, and his sign had now
+been hanging out a week. Not a customer yet; he was a discouraged man,
+and sorry he had come. But his weather changed suddenly now. First one
+and then another chief citizen’s wife said to him privately:
+
+“Come to my house Monday week--but say nothing about it for the
+present. We think of building.”
+
+He got eleven invitations that day. That night he wrote his daughter
+and broke off her match with her student. He said she could marry a
+mile higher than that.
+
+Pinkerton the banker and two or three other well-to-do men planned
+country-seats--but waited. That kind don’t count their chickens until
+they are hatched.
+
+The Wilsons devised a grand new thing--a fancy-dress ball. They made
+no actual promises, but told all their acquaintanceship in confidence
+that they were thinking the matter over and thought they should give
+it--“and if we do, you will be invited, of course.” People were
+surprised, and said, one to another, “Why, they are crazy, those
+poor Wilsons, they can’t afford it.” Several among the nineteen said
+privately to their husbands, “It is a good idea, we will keep still
+till their cheap thing is over, then _we_ will give one that will make
+it sick.”
+
+The days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings rose higher
+and higher, wilder and wilder, more and more foolish and reckless. It
+began to look as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend
+his whole forty thousand dollars before receiving-day, but be actually
+in debt by the time he got the money. In some cases light-headed people
+did not stop with planning to spend, they really spent--on credit.
+They bought land, mortgages, farms, speculative stocks, fine clothes,
+horses, and various other things, paid down the bonus, and made
+themselves liable for the rest--at ten days. Presently the sober second
+thought came, and Halliday noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning
+to show up in a good many faces. Again he was puzzled, and didn’t know
+what to make of it. “The Wilcox kittens aren’t dead, for they weren’t
+born; nobody’s broken a leg; there’s no shrinkage in mother-in-laws;
+_nothing_ has happened--it is an insolvable mystery.”
+
+There was another puzzled man, too--the Rev. Mr. Burgess. For days,
+wherever he went, people seemed to follow him or to be watching out for
+him; and if he ever found himself in a retired spot, a member of the
+nineteen would be sure to appear, thrust an envelope privately into
+his hand, whisper “To be opened at the town-hall Friday evening,” then
+vanish away like a guilty thing. He was expecting that there might be
+one claimant for the sack--doubtful, however, Goodson being dead--but
+it never occurred to him that all this crowd might be claimants. When
+the great Friday came at last, he found that he had nineteen envelopes.
+
+
+
+
+III.
+
+
+The town-hall had never looked finer. The platform at the end of it
+was backed by a showy draping of flags; at intervals along the walls
+were festoons of flags; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags; the
+supporting columns were swathed in flags; all this was to impress the
+stranger, for he would be there in considerable force, and in a large
+degree he would be connected with the press. The house was full. The
+412 fixed seats were occupied; also the 68 extra chairs which had
+been packed into the aisles; the steps of the platform were occupied;
+some distinguished strangers were given seats on the platform; at the
+horseshoe of tables which fenced the front and sides of the platform
+sat a strong force of special correspondents who had come from
+everywhere. It was the best-dressed house the town had ever produced.
+There were some tolerably expensive toilets there, and in several cases
+the ladies who wore them had the look of being unfamiliar with that
+kind of clothes. At least the town thought they had that look, but the
+notion could have arisen from the town’s knowledge of the fact that
+these ladies had never inhabited such clothes before.
+
+The gold-sack stood on a little table at the front of the platform
+where all the house could see it. The bulk of the house gazed at it
+with a burning interest, a mouth-watering interest, a wistful and
+pathetic interest; a minority of nineteen couples gazed at it tenderly,
+lovingly, proprietarily, and the male half of this minority kept saying
+over to themselves the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness
+for the audience’s applause and congratulations which they were
+presently going to get up and deliver. Every now and then one of these
+got a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and privately glanced at it
+to refresh his memory.
+
+Of course there was a buzz of conversation going on--there always
+is; but at last, when the Rev. Mr. Burgess rose and laid his hand on
+the sack, he could hear his microbes gnaw, the place was so still.
+He related the curious history of the sack, then went on to speak
+in warm terms of Hadleyburg’s old and well-earned reputation for
+spotless honesty, and of the town’s just pride in this reputation.
+He said that this reputation was a treasure of priceless value; that
+under Providence its value had now become inestimably enhanced, for
+the recent episode had spread this fame far and wide, and thus had
+focussed the eyes of the American world upon this village, and made its
+name for all time, as he hoped and believed, a synonym for commercial
+incorruptibility. [Applause.] “And who is to be the guardian of this
+noble fame--the community as a whole? No! The responsibility is
+individual, not communal. From this day forth each and every one of you
+is in his own person its special guardian, and individually responsible
+that no harm shall come to it. Do you--does each of you--accept this
+great trust? [Tumultuous assent.] Then all is well. Transmit it to
+your children and to your children’s children. To-day your purity is
+beyond reproach--see to it that it shall remain so. To-day there is not
+a person in your community who could be beguiled to touch a penny not
+his own--see to it that you abide in this grace. [“We will! we will!”]
+This is not the place to make comparisons between ourselves and other
+communities--some of them ungracious towards us; they have their ways,
+we have ours; let us be content. [Applause.] I am done. Under my hand,
+my friends, rests a stranger’s eloquent recognition of what we are;
+through him the world will always henceforth know what we are. We do
+not know who he is, but in your name I utter your gratitude, and ask
+you to raise your voices in indorsement.”
+
+The house rose in a body and made the walls quake with the thunders
+of its thankfulness for the space of a long minute. Then it sat down,
+and Mr. Burgess took an envelope out of his pocket. The house held
+its breath while he slit the envelope open and took from it a slip of
+paper. He read its contents--slowly and impressively--the audience
+listening with tranced attention to this magic document, each of whose
+words stood for an ingot of gold:
+
+“‘The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this:
+“You are very far from being a bad man; go, and reform.”’” Then he
+continued:--“We shall know in a moment now whether the remark here
+quoted corresponds with the one concealed in the sack; and if that
+shall prove to be so--and it undoubtedly will--this sack of gold
+belongs to a fellow-citizen who will henceforth stand before the nation
+as the symbol of the special virtue which has made our town famous
+throughout the land--Mr. Billson!”
+
+The house had gotten itself all ready to burst into the proper tornado
+of applause; but instead of doing it, it seemed stricken with a
+paralysis; there was a deep hush for a moment or two, then a wave of
+whispered murmurs swept the place--of about this tenor: “_Billson_!
+oh, come, this is _too_ thin! Twenty dollars to a stranger--or
+_anybody_--_Billson_! Tell it to the marines!” And now at this point
+the house caught its breath all of a sudden in a new access of
+astonishment, for it discovered that whereas in one part of the hall
+Deacon Billson was standing up with his head meekly bowed, in another
+part of it Lawyer Wilson was doing the same. There was a wondering
+silence now for a while. Everybody was puzzled, and nineteen couples
+were surprised and indignant.
+
+Billson and Wilson turned and stared at each other. Billson asked,
+bitingly:
+
+“Why do _you_ rise, Mr. Wilson?”
+
+“Because I have a right to. Perhaps you will be good enough to explain
+to the house why _you_ rise.”
+
+“With great pleasure. Because I wrote that paper.”
+
+“It is an impudent falsity! I wrote it myself.”
+
+It was Burgess’s turn to be paralysed. He stood looking vacantly at
+first one of the men and then the other, and did not seem to know what
+to do. The house was stupefied. Lawyer Wilson spoke up now, and said:
+
+“I ask the Chair to read the name signed to that paper.”
+
+That brought the Chair to itself, and it read out the name:
+
+“John Wharton _Billson_.”
+
+“There!” shouted Billson, “what have you got to say for yourself now?
+And what kind of apology are you going to make to me and to this
+insulted house for the imposture which you have attempted to play here?”
+
+“No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest of it, I publicly
+charge you with pilfering my note from Mr. Burgess and substituting a
+copy of it signed with your own name. There is no other way by which
+you could have gotten hold of the test-remark; I alone, of living men,
+possessed the secret of its wording.”
+
+There was likely to be a scandalous state of things if this went
+on; everybody noticed with distress that the shorthand scribes were
+scribbling like mad; many people were crying “Chair, chair! Order!
+order!” Burgess rapped with his gavel, and said:
+
+“Let us not forget the proprieties due. There has evidently been a
+mistake somewhere, but surely that is all. If Mr. Wilson gave me an
+envelope--and I remember now that he did--I still have it.”
+
+He took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced at it, looked
+surprised and worried, and stood silent a few moments. Then he waved
+his hand in a wandering and mechanical way, and made an effort or two
+to say something, then gave it up, despondently. Several voices cried
+out:
+
+“Read it! read it! What is it?”
+
+So he began, in a dazed and sleep-walker fashion:
+
+“‘The remark which I made to the unhappy stranger was this: “You are
+far from being a bad man. [The house gazed at him marvelling.] Go, and
+reform.”’ [Murmurs: “Amazing! what can this mean?”] This one,” said the
+Chair, “is signed Thurlow G. Wilson.”
+
+“There!” cried Wilson, “I reckon that settles it! I knew perfectly well
+my note was purloined.”
+
+“Purloined!” retorted Billson. “I’ll let you know that neither you nor
+any man of your kidney must venture to--”
+
+The Chair: “Order, gentlemen, order! Take your seats, both of you,
+please.”
+
+They obeyed, shaking their heads and grumbling angrily. The house
+was profoundly puzzled; it did not know what to do with this curious
+emergency. Presently Thompson got up. Thompson was the hatter. He would
+have liked to be a Nineteener; but such was not for him; his stock of
+hats was not considerable enough for the position. He said:
+
+“Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, can both of
+these gentlemen be right? I put it to you, sir, can both have happened
+to say the very same words to the stranger? It seems to me--”
+
+The tanner got up and interrupted him. The tanner was a disgruntled
+man; he believed himself entitled to be a Nineteener, but he couldn’t
+get recognition. It made him a little unpleasant in his ways and
+speech. Said he:
+
+“Sho, _that’s_ not the point! _That_ could happen--twice in a hundred
+years--but not the other thing. _Neither_ of them gave the twenty
+dollars!” [A ripple of applause.]
+
+Billson. “I did!”
+
+Wilson. “I did!”
+
+Then each accused the other of pilfering.
+
+The Chair. “Order! Sit down, if you please--both of you. Neither of the
+notes has been out of my possession at any moment.”
+
+A Voice. “Good--that settles _that_!”
+
+The Tanner. “Mr. Chairman, one thing is now plain: one of these men
+has been eavesdropping under the other one’s bed, and filching family
+secrets. If it is not unparliamentary to suggest it, I will remark
+that both are equal to it. [The Chair. “Order! order!”] I withdraw the
+remark, sir, and will confine myself to suggesting that _if_ one of
+them has overheard the other reveal the test-remark to his wife, we
+shall catch him now.”
+
+A Voice. “How?”
+
+The Tanner. “Easily. The two have not quoted the remark in exactly
+the same words. You would have noticed that, if there hadn’t been a
+considerable stretch of time and an exciting quarrel inserted between
+the two readings.”
+
+A Voice. “Name the difference.”
+
+The Tanner. “The word _very_ is in Billson’s note, and not in the
+other.”
+
+Many Voices. “That’s so--he’s right!”
+
+The Tanner. “And so, if the Chair will examine the test-remark in
+the sack, we shall know which of these two frauds--[The Chair.
+“Order!”]--which of these two adventurers--[The Chair. “Order!
+order!”]--which of these two gentlemen--[laughter and applause]--is
+entitled to wear the belt as being the first dishonest blatherskite
+ever bred in this town--which he has dishonoured, and which will be a
+sultry place for him from now out!” [Vigorous applause.]
+
+Many Voices. “Open it!--open the sack!”
+
+Mr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand in, and brought out
+an envelope. In it were a couple of folded notes. He said:
+
+“One of these is marked, ‘Not to be examined until all written
+communications which have been addressed to the Chair--if any--shall
+have been read.’ The other is marked ‘_The Test_.’ Allow me. It is
+worded--to wit:
+
+“‘I do not require that the first half of the remark which was made
+to me by my benefactor shall be quoted with exactness, for it was not
+striking, and could be forgotten; but its closing fifteen words are
+quite striking, and I think easily rememberable; unless _these_ shall
+be accurately reproduced, let the applicant be regarded as an impostor.
+My benefactor began by saying he seldom gave advice to anyone, but that
+it always bore the hall-mark of high value when he did give it. Then he
+said this--and it has never faded from my memory: ‘_You are far from
+being a bad man_--’’”
+
+Fifty Voices. “That settles it--the money’s Wilson’s! Wilson! Wilson!
+Speech! Speech!”
+
+People jumped up and crowded around Wilson, wringing his hand and
+congratulating fervently--meantime the Chair was hammering with the
+gavel and shouting:
+
+“Order, gentlemen! Order! Order! Let me finish reading, please.” When
+quiet was restored, the reading was resumed--as follows:
+
+“‘_Go, and reform--or, mark my words--some day, for your sins you will
+die and go to hell or Hadleyburg_--TRY AND MAKE IT THE FORMER.’”
+
+A ghastly silence followed. First an angry cloud began to settle darkly
+upon the faces of the citizenship; after a pause the cloud began to
+rise, and a tickled expression tried to take its place; tried so hard
+that it was only kept under with great and painful difficulty; the
+reporters, the Brixtonites, and other strangers bent their heads down
+and shielded their faces with their hands, and managed to hold in by
+main strength and heroic courtesy. At this most inopportune time burst
+upon the stillness the roar of a solitary voice--Jack Halliday’s:
+
+“_That’s_ got the hall-mark on it!”
+
+Then the house let go, strangers and all. Even Mr. Burgess’s gravity
+broke down presently, then the audience considered itself officially
+absolved from all restraint, and it made the most of its privilege. It
+was a good long laugh, and a tempestuously wholehearted one, but it
+ceased at last--long enough for Mr. Burgess to try to resume, and for
+the people to get their eyes partially wiped; then it broke out again,
+and afterward yet again; then at last Burgess was able to get out these
+serious words:
+
+“It is useless to try to disguise the fact--we find ourselves in the
+presence of a matter of grave import. It involves the honour of your
+town--it strikes at the town’s good name. The difference of a single
+word between the test-remarks offered by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Billson was
+itself a serious thing, since it indicated that one or the other of
+these gentlemen had committed a theft--”
+
+The two men were sitting limp, nerveless, crushed; but at these words
+both were electrified into movement, and started to get up.
+
+“Sit down!” said the Chair, sharply, and they obeyed. “That, as I
+have said, was a serious thing. And it was--but for only one of them.
+But the matter has become graver; for the honour of _both_ is now in
+formidable peril. Shall I go even further, and say in inextricable
+peril? _Both_ left out the crucial fifteen words.” He paused. During
+several moments he allowed the pervading stillness to gather and
+deepen its impressive effects, then added: “There would seem to be but
+one way whereby this could happen. I ask these gentlemen--Was there
+_collusion_?--_agreement_?”
+
+A low murmur sifted through the house; its import was, “He’s got them
+both.”
+
+Billson was not used to emergencies; he sat in a helpless collapse. But
+Wilson was a lawyer. He struggled to his feet, pale and worried, and
+said:
+
+“I ask the indulgence of the house while I explain this most painful
+matter. I am sorry to say what I am about to say, since it must inflict
+irreparable injury upon Mr. Billson, whom I have always esteemed and
+respected until now, and in whose invulnerability to temptation I
+entirely believed--as did you all. But for the preservation of my own
+honour I must speak--and with frankness. I confess with shame--and I
+now beseech your pardon for it--that I said to the ruined stranger all
+of the words contained in the test-remark, including the disparaging
+fifteen. [Sensation.] When the late publication was made I recalled
+them, and I resolved to claim the sack of coin, for by every right
+I was entitled to it. Now I will ask you to consider this point,
+and weigh it well; that stranger’s gratitude to me that night knew
+no bounds; he said himself that he could find no words for it that
+were adequate, and that if he should ever be able he would repay me
+a thousandfold. Now, then, I ask you this; could I expect--could I
+believe--could I even remotely imagine--that, feeling as he did, he
+would do so ungrateful a thing as to add those quite unnecessary
+fifteen words to his test?--set a trap for me?--expose me as a
+slanderer of my own town before my own people assembled in a public
+hall? It was preposterous; it was impossible. His test would contain
+only the kindly opening clause of my remark. Of that I had no shadow of
+doubt. You would have thought as I did. You would not have expected a
+base betrayal from one whom you had befriended and against whom you had
+committed no offence. And so with perfect confidence, perfect trust,
+I wrote on a piece of paper the opening words--ending with “Go, and
+reform,”--and signed it. When I was about to put it in an envelope I
+was called into my back office, and without thinking I left the paper
+lying open on my desk.” He stopped, turned his head slowly toward
+Billson, waited a moment, then added: “I ask you to note this; when I
+returned, a little latter, Mr. Billson was retiring by my street door.”
+[Sensation.]
+
+In a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting:
+
+“It’s a lie! It’s an infamous lie!”
+
+The Chair. “Be seated, sir! Mr. Wilson has the floor.”
+
+Billson’s friends pulled him into his seat and quieted him, and Wilson
+went on:
+
+“Those are the simple facts. My note was now lying in a different place
+on the table from where I had left it. I noticed that, but attached
+no importance to it, thinking a draught had blown it there. That
+Mr. Billson would read a private paper was a thing which could not
+occur to me; he was an honourable man, and he would be above that. If
+you will allow me to say it, I think his extra word ‘_very_’ stands
+explained: it is attributable to a defect of memory. I was the only man
+in the world who could furnish here any detail of the test-mark--by
+_honourable_ means. I have finished.”
+
+There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the
+mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions
+of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.
+Wilson sat down victorious. The house submerged him in tides of
+approving applause; friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand
+and congratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed to
+say a word. The Chair hammered and hammered with its gavel, and kept
+shouting:
+
+“But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed!”
+
+At last there was a measurable degree of quiet, and the hatter said:
+
+“But what is there to proceed with, sir, but to deliver the money?”
+
+Voices. “That’s it! That’s it! Come forward, Wilson!”
+
+The Hatter. “I move three cheers for Mr. Wilson, Symbol of the special
+virtue which--”
+
+The cheers burst forth before he could finish; and in the midst
+of them--and in the midst of the clamour of the gavel also--some
+enthusiasts mounted Wilson on a big friend’s shoulder and were going to
+fetch him in triumph to the platform. The Chair’s voice now rose above
+the noise:
+
+“Order! To your places! You forget that there is still a document to
+be read.” When quiet had been restored he took up the document, and
+was going to read it, but laid it down again saying “I forgot; this is
+not to be read until all written communications received by me have
+first been read.” He took an envelope out of his pocket, removed its
+enclosure, glanced at it--seemed astonished--held it out and gazed at
+it--stared at it.
+
+Twenty or thirty voices cried out
+
+“What is it? Read it! read it!”
+
+And he did--slowly, and wondering:
+
+“‘The remark which I made to the stranger--[Voices. “Hello! how’s
+this?”]--was this: ‘You are far from being a bad man. [Voices. “Great
+Scott!”] Go, and reform.’” [Voice. “Oh, saw my leg off!”] Signed by Mr.
+Pinkerton the banker.”
+
+The pandemonium of delight which turned itself loose now was of a sort
+to make the judicious weep. Those whose withers were unwrung laughed
+till the tears ran down; the reporters, in throes of laughter, set down
+disordered pot-hooks which would never in the world be decipherable;
+and a sleeping dog jumped up scared out of its wits, and barked itself
+crazy at the turmoil. All manner of cries were scattered through the
+din: “We’re getting rich--_two_ Symbols of Incorruptibility!--without
+counting Billson!” “_Three_!--count Shadbelly in--we can’t have too
+many!” “All right--Billson’s elected!” “Alas, poor Wilson! victim of
+_two_ thieves!”
+
+A Powerful Voice. “Silence! The Chair’s fished up something more out of
+its pocket.”
+
+Voices. “Hurrah! Is it something fresh? Read it! read! read!”
+
+The Chair [reading]. “‘The remark which I made,’ etc. ‘You are far from
+being a bad man. Go,’ etc. Signed, ‘Gregory Yates.’”
+
+Tornado of Voices. “Four Symbols!” “’Rah for Yates!” “Fish again!”
+
+The house was in a roaring humour now, and ready to get all the fun out
+of the occasion that might be in it. Several Nineteeners, looking pale
+and distressed, got up and began to work their way towards the aisles,
+but a score of shouts went up:
+
+“The doors, the doors--close the doors; no Incorruptible shall leave
+this place! Sit down, everybody!” The mandate was obeyed.
+
+“Fish again! Read! read!”
+
+The Chair fished again, and once more the familiar words began to fall
+from its lips--“‘You are far from being a bad man--’”
+
+“Name! name! What’s his name?”
+
+“‘L. Ingoldsby Sargent.’”
+
+“Five elected! Pile up the Symbols! Go on, go on!”
+
+“‘You are far from being a bad--’”
+
+“Name! name!”
+
+“‘Nicholas Whitworth.’”
+
+“Hooray! hooray! it’s a symbolical day!”
+
+Somebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving out “it’s”)
+to the lovely “Mikado” tune of “When a man’s afraid of a beautiful
+maid;” the audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, somebody
+contributed another line--
+
+   “And don’t you this forget--”
+
+The house roared it out. A third line was at once furnished--
+
+   “Corruptibles far from Hadleyburg are--”
+
+The house roared that one too. As the last note died, Jack Halliday’s
+voice rose high and clear, freighted with a final line--
+
+   “But the Symbols are here, you bet!”
+
+That was sung, with booming enthusiasm. Then the happy house started in
+at the beginning and sang the four lines through twice, with immense
+swing and dash, and finished up with a crashing three-times-three and a
+tiger for “Hadleyburg the Incorruptible and all Symbols of it which we
+shall find worthy to receive the hall-mark to-night.”
+
+Then the shoutings at the Chair began again, all over the place:
+
+“Go on! go on! Read! read some more! Read all you’ve got!”
+
+“That’s it--go on! We are winning eternal celebrity!”
+
+A dozen men got up now and began to protest. They said that this farce
+was the work of some abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole
+community. Without a doubt these signatures were all forgeries--
+
+“Sit down! sit down! Shut up! You are confessing. We’ll find your
+names in the lot.”
+
+“Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you got?”
+
+The Chair counted.
+
+“Together with those that have been already examined, there are
+nineteen.”
+
+A storm of derisive applause broke out.
+
+“Perhaps they all contain the secret. I move that you open them all and
+read every signature that is attached to a note of that sort--and read
+also the first eight words of the note.”
+
+“Second the motion!”
+
+It was put and carried--uproariously. Then poor old Richards got up, and
+his wife rose and stood at his side. Her head was bent down, so that
+none might see that she was crying. Her husband gave her his arm, and so
+supporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice:
+
+“My friends, you have known us two--Mary and me--all our lives, and I
+think you have liked us and respected us--”
+
+The Chair interrupted him:
+
+“Allow me. It is quite true--that which you are saying, Mr. Richards;
+this town _does_ know you two; it _does_ like you; it _does_ respect you;
+more--it honours you and _loves_ you--”
+
+Halliday’s voice rang out:
+
+“That’s the hall-marked truth, too! If the Chair is right, let the house
+speak up and say it. Rise! Now, then--hip! hip! hip!--all together!”
+
+The house rose in mass, faced toward the old couple eagerly, filled the
+air with a snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs, and delivered the cheers
+with all its affectionate heart.
+
+The Chair then continued:
+
+“What I was going to say is this: We know your good heart, Mr. Richards,
+but this is not a time for the exercise of charity toward offenders.
+[Shouts of “Right! right!”] I see your generous purpose in your face,
+but I cannot allow you to plead for these men--”
+
+“But I was going to--”
+
+“Please take your seat, Mr. Richards. We must examine the rest of these
+notes--simple fairness to the men who have already been exposed requires
+this. As soon as that has been done--I give you my word for this--you
+shall he heard.”
+
+Many voices. “Right!--the Chair is right--no interruption can be
+permitted at this stage! Go on!--the names! the names!--according to the
+terms of the motion!”
+
+The old couple sat reluctantly down, and the husband whispered to the
+wife, “It is pitifully hard to have to wait; the shame will be greater
+than ever when they find we were only going to plead for _ourselves_.”
+
+Straightway the jollity broke loose again with the reading of the names.
+
+“‘You are far from being a bad man--’ Signature, ‘Robert J. Titmarsh.’”
+
+“‘You are far from being a bad man--’ Signature, ‘Eliphalet Weeks.’”
+
+“‘You are far from being a bad man--’ Signature, ‘Oscar B. Wilder.’”
+
+At this point the house lit upon the idea of taking the eight words out
+of the Chairman’s hands. He was not unthankful for that. Thenceforward
+he held up each note in its turn and waited. The house droned out the
+eight words in a massed and measured and musical deep volume of sound
+(with a daringly close resemblance to a well-known church chant)--“You
+are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-a-d man.” Then the Chair said, “Signature,
+‘Archibald Wilcox.’” And so on, and so on, name after name, and
+everybody had an increasingly and gloriously good time except the
+wretched Nineteen. Now and then, when a particularly shining name was
+called, the house made the Chair wait while it chanted the whole of the
+test-remark from the beginning to the closing words, “And go to hell or
+Hadleyburg--try and make it the for-or-m-e-r!” and in these special cases
+they added a grand and agonised and imposing “A-a-a-a-_men_!”
+
+The list dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old Richards keeping tally of
+the count, wincing when a name resembling his own was pronounced, and
+waiting in miserable suspense for the time to come when it would be his
+humiliating privilege to rise with Mary and finish his plea, which he was
+intending to word thus: “... for until now we have never done any wrong
+thing, but have gone our humble way unreproached. We are very poor, we
+are old, and, have no chick nor child to help us; we were sorely tempted,
+and we fell. It was my purpose when I got up before to make confession
+and beg that my name might not be read out in this public place, for it
+seemed to us that we could not bear it; but I was prevented. It was
+just; it was our place to suffer with the rest. It has been hard for us.
+It is the first time we have ever heard our name fall from any one’s
+lips--sullied. Be merciful--for the sake or the better days; make our
+shame as light to bear as in your charity you can.” At this point in his
+reverie Mary nudged him, perceiving that his mind was absent. The house
+was chanting, “You are f-a-r,” etc.
+
+“Be ready,” Mary whispered. “Your name comes now; he has read eighteen.”
+
+The chant ended.
+
+“Next! next! next!” came volleying from all over the house.
+
+Burgess put his hand into his pocket. The old couple, trembling, began
+to rise. Burgess fumbled a moment, then said:
+
+“I find I have read them all.”
+
+Faint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their seats, and Mary
+whispered:
+
+“Oh, bless God, we are saved!--he has lost ours--I wouldn’t give this for
+a hundred of those sacks!”
+
+The house burst out with its “Mikado” travesty, and sang it three times
+with ever-increasing enthusiasm, rising to its feet when it reached for
+the third time the closing line--
+
+   “But the Symbols are here, you bet!”
+
+and finishing up with cheers and a tiger for “Hadleyburg purity and our
+eighteen immortal representatives of it.”
+
+Then Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed cheers “for the cleanest
+man in town, the one solitary important citizen in it who didn’t try to
+steal that money--Edward Richards.”
+
+They were given with great and moving heartiness; then somebody proposed
+that “Richards be elected sole Guardian and Symbol of the now Sacred
+Hadleyburg Tradition, with power and right to stand up and look the whole
+sarcastic world in the face.”
+
+Passed, by acclamation; then they sang the “Mikado” again, and ended it
+with--
+
+   “And there’s _one_ Symbol left, you bet!”
+
+There was a pause; then--
+
+A Voice. “Now, then, who’s to get the sack?”
+
+The Tanner (with bitter sarcasm). “That’s easy. The money has to be
+divided among the eighteen Incorruptibles. They gave the suffering
+stranger twenty dollars apiece--and that remark--each in his turn--it
+took twenty-two minutes for the procession to move past. Staked the
+stranger--total contribution, $360. All they want is just the loan
+back--and interest--forty thousand dollars altogether.”
+
+Many Voices [derisively.] “That’s it! Divvy! divvy! Be kind to the
+poor--don’t keep them waiting!”
+
+The Chair. “Order! I now offer the stranger’s remaining document.
+It says: ‘If no claimant shall appear [grand chorus of groans], I
+desire that you open the sack and count out the money to the principal
+citizens of your town, they to take it in trust [Cries of “Oh! Oh!
+Oh!”], and use it in such ways as to them shall seem best for the
+propagation and preservation of your community’s noble reputation
+for incorruptible honesty [more cries]--a reputation to which their
+names and their efforts will add a new and far-reaching lustre.”
+[Enthusiastic outburst of sarcastic applause.] That seems to be all.
+No--here is a postscript:
+
+“‘P.S.--CITIZENS OF HADLEYBURG: There _is_ no test-remark--nobody
+made one. [Great sensation.] There wasn’t any pauper stranger, nor
+any twenty-dollar contribution, nor any accompanying benediction
+and compliment--these are all inventions. [General buzz and hum of
+astonishment and delight.] Allow me to tell my story--it will take
+but a word or two. I passed through your town at a certain time, and
+received a deep offence which I had not earned. Any other man would
+have been content to kill one or two of you and call it square, but
+to me that would have been a trivial revenge, and inadequate; for the
+dead do not _suffer_. Besides I could not kill you all--and, anyway,
+made as I am, even that would not have satisfied me. I wanted to damage
+every man in the place, and every woman--and not in their bodies or in
+their estate, but in their vanity--the place where feeble and foolish
+people are most vulnerable. So I disguised myself and came back and
+studied you. You were easy game. You had an old and lofty reputation
+for honesty, and naturally you were proud of it--it was your treasure
+of treasures, the very apple of your eye. As soon as I found out that
+you carefully and vigilantly kept yourselves and your children _out
+of temptation_, I knew how to proceed. Why, you simple creatures, the
+weakest of all weak things is a virtue which has not been tested in
+the fire. I laid a plan, and gathered a list of names. My project was
+to corrupt Hadleyburg the Incorruptible. My idea was to make liars
+and thieves of nearly half a hundred smirchless men and women who had
+never in their lives uttered a lie or stolen a penny. I was afraid of
+Goodson. He was neither born nor reared in Hadleyburg. I was afraid
+that if I started to operate my scheme by getting my letter laid before
+you, you would say to yourselves, ‘Goodson is the only man among us who
+would give away twenty dollars to a poor devil’--and then you might
+not bite at my bait. But heaven took Goodson; then I knew I was safe,
+and I set my trap and baited it. It may be that I shall not catch all
+the men to whom I mailed the pretended test-secret, but I shall catch
+the most of them, if I know Hadleyburg nature. [Voices. “Right--he got
+every last one of them.”] I believe they will even steal ostensible
+_gamble_-money, rather than miss, poor, tempted, and mistrained
+fellows. I am hoping to eternally and everlastingly squelch your vanity
+and give Hadleyburg a new renown--one that will _stick_--and spread
+far. If I have succeeded, open the sack and summon the Committee on
+Propagation and Preservation of the Hadleyburg Reputation.’”
+
+A Cyclone of Voices. “Open it! Open it! The Eighteen to the front!
+Committee on Propagation of the Tradition! Forward--the Incorruptibles!”
+
+The Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up a handful of bright,
+broad, yellow coins, shook them together, then examined them.
+
+“Friends, they are only gilded disks of lead!”
+
+There was a crashing outbreak of delight over this news, and when the
+noise had subsided, the tanner called out:
+
+“By right of apparent seniority in this business, Mr. Wilson is
+Chairman of the Committee on Propagation of the Tradition. I suggest
+that he step forward on behalf of his pals, and receive in trust the
+money.”
+
+A Hundred Voices. “Wilson! Wilson! Wilson! Speech! Speech!”
+
+Wilson [in a voice trembling with anger]. “You will allow me to say,
+and without apologies for my language, _damn_ the money!”
+
+A Voice. “Oh, and him a Baptist!”
+
+A Voice. “Seventeen Symbols left! Step up, gentlemen, and assume your
+trust!”
+
+There was a pause--no response.
+
+The Saddler. “Mr. Chairman, we’ve got _one_ clean man left, anyway, out
+of the late aristocracy; and he needs money, and deserves it. I move
+that you appoint Jack Halliday to get up there and auction off that
+sack of gilt twenty-dollar pieces, and give the result to the right
+man--the man whom Hadleyburg delights to honour--Edward Richards.”
+
+This was received with great enthusiasm, the dog taking a hand again;
+the saddler started the bids at a dollar, the Brixton folk and Barnum’s
+representative fought hard for it, the people cheered every jump that
+the bids made, the excitement climbed moment by moment higher and
+higher, the bidders got on their mettle and grew steadily more and more
+daring, more and more determined, the jumps went from a dollar up to
+five, then to ten, then to twenty, then fifty, then to a hundred, then--
+
+At the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in distress to
+his wife: “Oh, Mary, can we allow it? It--it--you see, it is an
+honour--reward, a testimonial to purity of character, and--and--can
+we allow it? Hadn’t I better get up and--Oh, Mary, what ought we
+to do?--what do you think we--” [Halliday’s voice. “Fifteen I’m
+bid!--fifteen for the sack!--twenty!--ah, thanks!--thirty--thanks
+again! Thirty, thirty, thirty!--do I hear forty?--forty it is! Keep
+the ball rolling, gentlemen, keep it rolling!--fifty!--thanks, noble
+Roman!--going at fifty, fifty, fifty!--seventy!--ninety!--splendid!--a
+hundred!--pile it up, pile it up!--hundred and twenty--forty!--just
+in time!--hundred and fifty!--Two hundred!--superb! Do I hear two
+h--thanks!--two hundred and fifty!--”]
+
+“It is another temptation, Edward--I’m all in a tremble--but, oh, we’ve
+escaped one temptation, and that ought to warn us, to--[“Six did I
+hear?--thanks!--six fifty, six f--SEVEN hundred!”] And yet, Edward,
+when you think--nobody susp--[“Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make
+it nine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--nine!--this noble
+sack of virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars, gilding and
+all--come! do I hear--a thousand!--gratefully yours!--did some one say
+eleven?--a sack which is going to be the most celebrated in the whole
+Uni--”] “Oh, Edward” (beginning to sob), “we are so poor!--but--but--do
+as you think best--do as you think best.”
+
+Edward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not
+satisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances.
+
+Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten
+up as an impossible English earl, had been watching the evening’s
+proceedings with manifest interest, and with a contented expression in
+his face; and he had been privately commenting to himself. He was now
+soliloquising somewhat like this: “None of the Eighteen are bidding;
+that is not satisfactory; I must change that--the dramatic unities
+require it; they must buy the sack they tried to steal; they must pay
+a heavy price, too--some of them are rich. And another thing, when I
+make a mistake in Hadleyburg nature the man that puts that error upon
+me is entitled to a high honorarium, and some one must pay. This poor
+old Richards has brought my judgment to shame; he is an honest man:--I
+don’t understand it, but I acknowledge it. Yes, he saw my deuces--_and_
+with a straight flush, and by rights the pot is his. And it shall be
+a jack-pot, too, if I can manage it. He disappointed me, but let that
+pass.”
+
+He was watching the bidding. At a thousand, the market broke: the
+prices tumbled swiftly. He waited--and still watched. One competitor
+dropped out; then another, and another. He put in a bid or two now.
+When the bids had sunk to ten dollars, he added a five; some one raised
+him a three; he waited a moment, then flung in a fifty-dollar jump,
+and the sack was his--at $1,282. The house broke out in cheers--then
+stopped; for he was on his feet, and had lifted his hand. He began to
+speak.
+
+“I desire to say a word, and ask a favour. I am a speculator in
+rarities, and I have dealings with persons interested in numismatics
+all over the world. I can make a profit on this purchase, just as it
+stands; but there is a way, if I can get your approval, whereby I can
+make every one of these leaden twenty-dollar pieces worth its face
+in gold, and perhaps more. Grant me that approval, and I will give
+part of my gains to your Mr. Richards, whose invulnerable probity you
+have so justly and so cordially recognised to-night; his share shall
+be ten thousand dollars, and I will hand him the money to-morrow.
+[Great applause from the house. But the “invulnerable probity” made
+the Richardses blush prettily; however, it went for modesty, and did
+no harm.] If you will pass my proposition by a good majority--I would
+like a two-thirds vote--I will regard that as the town’s consent, and
+that is all I ask. Rarities are always helped by any device which will
+rouse curiosity and compel remark. Now if I may have your permission to
+stamp upon the faces of each of these ostensible coins the names of the
+eighteen gentlemen who--”
+
+Nine-tenths of the audience were on their feet in a moment--dog and
+all--and the proposition was carried with a whirlwind of approving
+applause and laughter.
+
+They sat down, and all the Symbols except “Dr.” Clay Harkness got up,
+violently protesting against the proposed outrage, and threatening to--
+
+“I beg you not to threaten me,” said the stranger calmly. “I know my
+legal rights, and am not accustomed to being frightened at bluster.”
+[Applause.] He sat down. “Dr.” Harkness saw an opportunity here. He
+was one of the two very rich men of the place, and Pinkerton was the
+other. Harkness was proprietor of a mint; that is to say, a popular
+patent medicine. He was running for the Legislature on one ticket, and
+Pinkerton on the other. It was a close race and a hot one, and getting
+hotter every day. Both had strong appetites for money; each had bought
+a great tract of land, with a purpose; there was going to be a new
+railway, and each wanted to be in the Legislature and help locate the
+route to his own advantage; a single vote might make the decision, and
+with it two or three fortunes. The stake was large, and Harkness was a
+daring speculator. He was sitting close to the stranger. He leaned over
+while one or another of the other Symbols was entertaining the house
+with protests and appeals, and asked, in a whisper,
+
+“What is your price for the sack?”
+
+“Forty thousand dollars.”
+
+“I’ll give you twenty.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Twenty-five.”
+
+“No.”
+
+“Say thirty.”
+
+“The price is forty thousand dollars; not a penny less.”
+
+“All right, I’ll give it. I will come to the hotel at ten in the
+morning. I don’t want it known; will see you privately.”
+
+“Very good.” Then the stranger got up and said to the house:
+
+“I find it late. The speeches of these gentlemen are not without merit,
+not without interest, not without grace; yet if I may be excused I will
+take my leave. I thank you for the great favour which you have shown me
+in granting my petition. I ask the Chair to keep the sack for me until
+to-morrow, and to hand these three five-hundred-dollar notes to Mr.
+Richards.” They were passed up to the Chair.
+
+“At nine I will call for the sack, and at eleven will deliver the rest
+of the ten thousand to Mr. Richards in person at his home. Good-night.”
+
+Then he slipped out, and left the audience making a vast noise,
+which was composed of a mixture of cheers, the “Mikado” song,
+dog-disapproval, and the chant, “You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-d
+man--a-a-a a-men!”
+
+
+
+
+IV.
+
+
+At home the Richardses had to endure congratulations and compliments
+until midnight. Then they were left to themselves. They looked a little
+sad, and they sat silent and thinking. Finally Mary sighed and said:
+
+“Do you think we are to blame, Edward--_much_ to blame?” and her eyes
+wandered to the accusing triplet of big bank-notes lying on the table,
+where the congratulators had been gloating over them and reverently
+fingering them. Edward did not answer at once; then he brought out a
+sigh and said, hesitatingly:
+
+“We--we couldn’t help it, Mary. It--well it was ordered. _All_ things
+are.”
+
+Mary glanced up and looked at him steadily, but he didn’t return the
+look. Presently she said:
+
+“I thought congratulations and praises always tasted good. But--it
+seems to me, now--Edward?”
+
+“Well?”
+
+“Are you going to stay in the bank?”
+
+“N--no.”
+
+“Resign?”
+
+“In the morning--by note.”
+
+“It does seem best.”
+
+Richards bowed his head in his hands and muttered:
+
+“Before I was not afraid to let oceans of people’s money pour through
+my hands, but--Mary, I am so tired, so tired--”
+
+“We will go to bed.”
+
+At nine in the morning the stranger called for the sack and took it to
+the hotel in a cab. At ten Harkness had a talk with him privately. The
+stranger asked for and got five cheques on a metropolitan bank--drawn
+to “Bearer,”--four for $1,500 each, and one for $34,000. He put one of
+the former in his pocket-book, and the remainder, representing $38,500,
+he put in an envelope, and with these he added a note which he wrote
+after Harkness was gone. At eleven he called at the Richards’ house
+and knocked. Mrs. Richards peeped through the shutters, then went and
+received the envelope, and the stranger disappeared without a word. She
+came back flushed and a little unsteady on her legs, and gasped out:
+
+“I am sure I recognised him! Last night it seemed to me that maybe I
+had seen him somewhere before.”
+
+“He is the man that brought the sack here?”
+
+“I am almost sure of it.”
+
+“Then he is the ostensible Stephenson too, and sold every important
+citizen in this town with his bogus secret. Now if he has sent cheques
+instead of money, we are sold too, after we thought we had escaped. I
+was beginning to feel fairly comfortable once more, after my night’s
+rest, but the look of that envelope makes me sick. It isn’t fat enough;
+$8,500 in even the largest bank-notes makes more bulk than that.”
+
+“Edward, why do you object to cheques?”
+
+“Cheques signed by Stephenson! I am resigned to take the $8,500 if it
+could come in bank-notes--for it does seem that it was so ordered,
+Mary--but I have never had much courage, and I have not the pluck to
+try to market a cheque signed with that disastrous name. It would be a
+trap. That man tried to catch me; we escaped somehow or other; and now
+he is trying a new way. If it is cheques--”
+
+“Oh, Edward, it is _too_ bad!” And she held up the cheques and began to
+cry.
+
+“Put them in the fire! quick! we mustn’t be tempted. It is a trick
+to make the world laugh at _us_, along with the rest, and--Give them
+to _me_, since you can’t do it!” He snatched them and tried to hold
+his grip till he could get to the stove; but he was human, he was a
+cashier, and he stopped a moment to make sure of the signature. Then he
+came near to fainting.
+
+“Fan me, Mary, fan me! They are the same as gold!”
+
+“Oh, how lovely, Edward! Why?”
+
+“Signed by Harkness. What can the mystery of that be, Mary?”
+
+“Edward, do you think--”
+
+“Look here--look at this! Fifteen--fifteen--fifteen--thirty-four.
+Thirty-eight thousand five hundred! Mary, the sack isn’t worth twelve
+dollars, and Harkness--apparently--has paid about par for it.”
+
+“And does it all come to us, do you think--instead of the ten thousand?”
+
+“Why, it looks like it. And the cheques are made to ‘Bearer,’ too.”
+
+“Is that good, Edward? What is it for?”
+
+“A hint to collect them at some distant bank, I reckon. Perhaps
+Harkness doesn’t want the matter known. What is that--a note?”
+
+“Yes. It was with the cheques.”
+
+It was in the “Stephenson” handwriting, but there was no signature. It
+said:
+
+   “I am a disappointed man. Your honesty is beyond the reach of
+   temptation. I had a different idea about it, but I wronged you in
+   that, and I beg pardon, and do it sincerely. I honour you--and that
+   is sincere too. This town is not worthy to kiss the hem of your
+   garment. Dear sir, I made a square bet with myself that there were
+   nineteen debauchable men in your self-righteous community. I have
+   lost. Take the whole pot, you are entitled to it.”
+
+Richards drew a deep sigh, and said:
+
+“It seems written with fire--it burns so. Mary--I am miserable again.”
+
+“I, too. Ah, dear, I wish--”
+
+“To think, Mary--he _believes_ in me.”
+
+
+“Oh, don’t, Edward--I can’t bear it.”
+
+“If those beautiful words were deserved, Mary--and God knows I believed I
+deserved them once--I think I could give the forty thousand dollars for
+them. And I would put that paper away, as representing more than gold
+and jewels, and keep it always. But now--We could not live in the shadow
+of its accusing presence, Mary.”
+
+He put it in the fire.
+
+A messenger arrived and delivered an envelope. Richards took from it a
+note and read it; it was from Burgess:
+
+   “You saved me, in a difficult time. I saved you last night. It was
+   at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and out of a
+   grateful heart. None in this village knows so well as I know how
+   brave and good and noble you are. At bottom you cannot respect me,
+   knowing as you do of that matter of which I am accused, and by the
+   general voice condemned; but I beg that you will at least believe that
+   I am a grateful man; it will help me to bear my burden. [Signed]
+   ‘BURGESS.’”
+
+“Saved, once more. And on such terms!” He put the note in the fire.
+“I--I wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I were out of it all!”
+
+“Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward. The stabs, through their
+very generosity, are so deep--and they come so fast!”
+
+Three days before the election each of two thousand voters suddenly
+found himself in possession of a prized memento--one of the renowned
+bogus double-eagles. Around one of its faces was stamped these words:
+“THE REMARK I MADE TO THE POOR STRANGER WAS--” Around the other face
+was stamped these: “GO, AND REFORM. [SIGNED] PINKERTON.” Thus the
+entire remaining refuse of the renowned joke was emptied upon a single
+head, and with calamitous effect. It revived the recent vast laugh and
+concentrated it upon Pinkerton; and Harkness’s election was a walk-over.
+
+Within twenty-four hours after the Richardses had received their
+cheques their consciences were quieting down, discouraged; the old
+couple were learning to reconcile themselves to the sin which they had
+committed. But they were to learn, now, that a sin takes on new and
+real terrors when there seems a chance that it is going to be found
+out. This gives it a fresh and most substantial and important aspect.
+At church the morning sermon was of the usual pattern; it was the same
+old things said in the same old way; they had heard them a thousand
+times and found them innocuous, next to meaningless, and easy to sleep
+under; but now it was different: the sermon seemed to bristle with
+accusations; it seemed aimed straight and specially at people who were
+concealing deadly sins. After church they got away from the mob of
+congratulators as soon as they could, and hurried homeward, chilled to
+the bone at they did not know what--vague, shadowy, indefinite fears.
+And by chance they caught a glimpse of Mr. Burgess as he turned a
+corner. He paid no attention to their nod of recognition! He hadn’t
+seen it; but they did not know that. What could his conduct mean?
+It might mean--it might--mean--oh, a dozen dreadful things. Was it
+possible that he knew that Richards could have cleared him of guilt in
+that bygone time, and had been silently waiting for a chance to even
+up accounts? At home, in their distress they got to imagining that
+their servant might have been in the next room listening when Richards
+revealed the secret to his wife that he knew of Burgess’s innocence;
+next Richards began to imagine that he had heard the swish of a gown
+in there at that time; next, he was sure he _had_ heard it. They would
+call Sarah in, on a pretext, and watch her face; if she had been
+betraying them to Mr. Burgess, it would show in her manner. They asked
+her some questions--questions which were so random and incoherent and
+seemingly purposeless that the girl felt sure that the old people’s
+minds had been affected by their sudden good fortune; the sharp and
+watchful gaze which they bent upon her frightened her, and that
+completed the business. She blushed, she became nervous and confused,
+and to the old people these were plain signs of guilt--guilt of some
+fearful sort or other--without doubt she was a spy and a traitor.
+When they were alone again they began to piece many unrelated things
+together and get horrible results out of the combination. When things
+had got about to the worst Richards was delivered of a sudden gasp and
+his wife asked:
+
+“Oh, what is it?--what is it?”
+
+“The note--Burgess’s note! Its language was sarcastic, I see it now.”
+He quoted: “‘At bottom you cannot respect me, _knowing_, as you do,
+of _that matter of_ which I am accused’--oh, it is perfectly plain,
+now, God help me! He knows that I know! You see the ingenuity of the
+phrasing. It was a trap--and like a fool, I walked into it. And Mary--!”
+
+“Oh, it is dreadful--I know what you are going to say--he didn’t return
+your transcript of the pretended test-remark.”
+
+“No--kept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us to some
+already. I know it--I know it well. I saw it in a dozen faces after
+church. Ah, he wouldn’t answer our nod of recognition--he knew what he
+had been doing!”
+
+In the night the doctor was called. The news went around in the
+morning that the old couple were rather seriously ill--prostrated by
+the exhausting excitement growing out of their great windfall, the
+congratulations, and the late hours, the doctor said. The town was
+sincerely distressed; for these old people were about all it had left
+to be proud of, now.
+
+Two days later the news was worse. The old couple were delirious, and
+were doing strange things. By witness of the nurses, Richards had
+exhibited cheques--for $8,500? No--for an amazing sum--$38,500! What
+could be the explanation of this gigantic piece of luck?
+
+The following day the nurses had more news--and wonderful. They had
+concluded to hide the cheques, lest harm come to them; but when they
+searched they were gone from under the patient’s pillow--vanished away.
+The patient said:
+
+“Let the pillow alone; what do you want?”
+
+“We thought it best that the cheques--”
+
+“You will never see them again--they are destroyed. They came from
+Satan. I saw the hell-brand on them, and I knew they were sent to
+betray me to sin.” Then he fell to gabbling strange and dreadful things
+which were not clearly understandable, and which the doctor admonished
+them to keep to themselves.
+
+Richards was right; the cheques were never seen again.
+
+A nurse must have talked in her sleep, for within two days the
+forbidden gabblings were the property of the town; and they were of
+a surprising sort. They seemed to indicate that Richards had been a
+claimant for the sack himself, and that Burgess had concealed that fact
+and then maliciously betrayed it.
+
+Burgess was taxed with this and stoutly denied it. And he said it was
+not fair to attach weight to the chatter of a sick old man who was out
+of his mind. Still, suspicion was in the air, and there was much talk.
+
+After a day or two it was reported that Mrs. Richards’s delirious
+deliveries were getting to be duplicates of her husband’s. Suspicion
+flamed up into conviction, now, and the town’s pride in the purity of
+its one undiscredited important citizen began to dim down and flicker
+toward extinction.
+
+Six days passed, then came more news. The old couple were dying.
+Richards’s mind cleared in his latest hour, and he sent for Burgess.
+Burgess said:
+
+“Let the room be cleared. I think he wishes to say something in
+privacy.”
+
+“No!” said Richards; “I want witnesses. I want you all to hear
+my confession, so that I may die a man, and not a dog. I was
+clean--artificially--like the rest; and like the rest I fell when
+temptation came. I signed a lie, and claimed the miserable sack. Mr.
+Burgess remembered that I had done him a service, and in gratitude (and
+ignorance) he suppressed my claim and saved me. You know the thing that
+was charged against Burgess years ago. My testimony, and mine alone,
+could have cleared him, and I was a coward and left him to suffer
+disgrace--”
+
+“No--no--Mr. Richards, you--”
+
+“My servant betrayed my secret to him--”
+
+“No one has betrayed anything to me--”
+
+--“And then he did a natural and justifiable thing; he repented of
+the saving kindness which he had done me, and he _exposed_ me--as I
+deserved--”
+
+“Never!--I make oath--”
+
+“Out of my heart I forgive him.”
+
+Burgess’s impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying man
+passed away without knowing that once more he had done poor Burgess a
+wrong. The old wife died that night.
+
+The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish
+sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory. Its
+mourning was not showy, but it was deep.
+
+By act of the Legislature--upon prayer and petition--Hadleyburg was
+allowed to change its name to (never mind what--I will not give it
+away), and leave one word out of the motto that for many generations
+had graced the town’s official seal.
+
+It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early
+that catches it napping again.
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 1213 ***