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!”