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, d.a.m.n the money!"
A Voice. "Oh, and him a Baptist!"
A Voice. "Seventeen Symbols left! Step up, gentlemen, and a.s.sume 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, n.o.ble 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--n.o.body susp--("Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make it nine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--nine!--this n.o.ble 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 circ.u.mstances.
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 ent.i.tled 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 pa.s.s."
He was watching the bidding. At a thousand, the market broke: the prices tumbled swiftly. He waited--and still watched. One compet.i.tor 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 pa.s.s 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 bl.u.s.ter."
(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 appet.i.tes 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 pet.i.tion. 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 pa.s.sed 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--"