The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, and Other Stories
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 tonight; 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