The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg

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"'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 he 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 lire.
"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.