The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
shall be 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,