Mark Twain ..............................................................................................................................................1

It was many years ago. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in all the region round about. It had

kept that reputation unsmirched during three generations, and was prouder of it than of any other of its

possessions. It was so proud of it, and so anxious to insure its perpetuation, that it began to teach the

principles of honest dealing to its babies in the cradle, and made the like teachings the staple of their culture

thenceforward through all the years devoted to their education. Also, throughout the formative years

temptations were kept out of the way of the young people, so that their honesty could have every chance to

harden and solidify, and become a part of their very bone. The neighbouring towns were jealous of this

honourable supremacy, and affected to sneer at Hadleyburg's pride in it and call it vanity; but all the same

they were obliged to acknowledge that Hadleyburg was in reality an incorruptible town; and if pressed they

would also acknowledge that the mere fact that a young man hailed from Hadleyburg was all the

recommendation he needed when he went forth from his natal town to seek for responsible employment.

But at last, in the drift of time, Hadleyburg had the ill luck to offend a passing strangerpossibly without

knowing it, certainly without caring, for Hadleyburg was sufficient unto itself, and cared not a rap for

strangers or their opinions. Still, it would have been well to make an exception in this one's case, for he was a

bitter man, and revengeful. All through his wanderings during a whole year he kept his injury in mind, and

gave all his leisure moments to trying to invent a compensating satisfaction for it. He contrived many plans,

and all of them were good, but none of them was quite sweeping enough: the poorest of them would hurt a

great many individuals, but what he wanted was a plan which would comprehend the entire town, and not let

so much as one person escape unhurt. At last he had a fortunate idea, and when it fell into his brain it lit up

his whole head with an evil joy. He began to form a plan at once, saying to himself "That is the thing to

Six months later he went to Hadleyburg, and arrived in a buggy at the house of the old cashier of the bank

about ten at night. He got a sack out of the buggy, shouldered it, and staggered with it through the cottage

yard, and knocked at the door. A woman's voice said "Come in," and he entered, and set his sack behind the

stove in the parlour, saying politely to the old lady who sat reading the "Missionary Herald" by the lamp:

"Pray keep your seat, madam, I will not disturb you. Therenow it is pretty well concealed; one would

"Very well, madam, it is no matter. I merely wanted to leave that sack in his care, to be delivered to the

rightful owner when he shall be found. I am a stranger; he does not know me; I am merely passing through

the town tonight to discharge a matter which has been long in my mind. My errand is now completed, and I

go pleased and a little proud, and you will never see me again. There is a paper attached to the sack which

The old lady was afraid of the mysterious big stranger, and was glad to see him go. But her curiosity was

roused, and she went straight to the sack and brought away the paper. It began as follows:

"TO BE PUBLISHED, or, the right man sought out by private inquiry either will answer. This sack

Mrs. Richards flew to it all in a tremble and locked it, then pulled down the windowshades and stood

frightened, worried, and wondering if there was anything else she could do toward making herself and the

money more safe. She listened awhile for burglars, then surrendered to curiosity, and went back to the lamp

"I am a foreigner, and am presently going back to my own country, to remain there permanently. I am

grateful to America for what I have received at her hands during my long stay under her flag; and to one of

her citizensa citizen of HadleyburgI am especially grateful for a great kindness done me a year or two

ago. Two great kindnesses in fact. I will explain. I was a gambler. I say I WAS. I was a ruined gambler. I

arrived in this village at night, hungry and without a penny. I asked for helpin the dark; I was ashamed to

beg in the light. I begged of the right man. He gave me twenty dollarsthat is to say, he gave me life, as I

considered it. He also gave me fortune; for out of that money I have made myself rich at the gamingtable.

And finally, a remark which he made to me has remained with me to this day, and has at last conquered me;

and in conquering has saved the remnant of my morals: I shall gamble no more. Now I have no idea who that

man was, but I want him found, and I want him to have this money, to give away, throw away, or keep, as he

pleases. It is merely my way of testifying my gratitude to him. If I could stay, I would find him myself; but

no matter, he will be found. This is an honest town, an incorruptible town, and I know I can trust it without

fear. This man can be identified by the remark which he made to me; I feel persuaded that he will remember

"And now my plan is this: If you prefer to conduct the inquiry privately, do so. Tell the contents of this

present writing to any one who is likely to be the right man. If he shall answer, 'I am the man; the remark I

made was soandso,' apply the testto wit: open the sack, and in it you will find a sealed envelope

containing that remark. If the remark mentioned by the candidate tallies with it, give him the money, and ask

"But if you shall prefer a public inquiry, then publish this present writing in the local paperwith these

instructions added, to wit: Thirty days from now, let the candidate appear at the townhall at eight in the

evening (Friday), and hand his remark, in a sealed envelope, to the Rev. Mr. Burgess (if he will be kind

enough to act); and let Mr. Burgess there and then destroy the seals of the sack, open it, and see if the remark

is correct: if correct, let the money be delivered, with my sincere gratitude, to my benefactor thus identified."

Mrs. Richards sat down, gently quivering with excitement, and was soon lost in thinkingsafter this pattern:

"What a strange thing it is! . . . And what a fortune for that kind man who set his bread afloat upon the

waters! . . . If it had only been my husband that did it!for we are so poor, so old and poor! . . ." Then, with

a sigh"But it was not my Edward; no, it was not he that gave a stranger twenty dollars. It is a pity too; I see

it now. . . " Then, with a shudder"But it is GAMBLERS' money! the wages of sin; we couldn't take it; we

couldn't touch it. I don't like to be near it; it seems a defilement." She moved to a farther chair. . . "I wish

Edward would come, and take it to the bank; a burglar might come at any moment; it is dreadful to be here all

At eleven Mr. Richards arrived, and while his wife was saying "I am SO glad you've come!" he was saying,

"I am so tiredtired clear out; it is dreadful to be poor, and have to make these dismal journeys at my time

of life. Always at the grind, grind, grind, on a salaryanother man's slave, and he sitting at home in his

"I am so sorry for you, Edward, you know that; but be comforted; we have our livelihood; we have our good

"Yes, Mary, and that is everything. Don't mind my talkit's just a moment's irritation and doesn't mean

anything. Kiss methere, it's all gone now, and I am not complaining any more. What have you been

Then his wife told him the great secret. It dazed him for a moment; then he said:

"It weighs a hundred and sixty pounds? Why, Mary, it's forty thousand dollarsthink of ita whole

"Isn't it an adventure! Why, it's a romance; it's like the impossible things one reads about in books, and never

sees in life." He was well stirred up now; cheerful, even gleeful. He tapped his old wife on the cheek, and

said humorously, "Why, we're rich, Mary, rich; all we've got to do is to bury the money and burn the papers.

If the gambler ever comes to inquire, we'll merely look coldly upon him and say: 'What is this nonsense you

are talking? We have never heard of you and your sack of gold before;' and then he would look foolish,

"And in the meantime, while you are running on with your jokes, the money is still here, and it is fast getting

"True. Very well, what shall we domake the inquiry private? No, not that; it would spoil the romance. The

public method is better. Think what a noise it will make! And it will make all the other towns jealous; for no

stranger would trust such a thing to any town but Hadleyburg, and they know it. It's a great card for us. I must

But he was gone. For only a little while, however. Not far from his own house he met the editorproprietor

of the paper, and gave him the document, and said "Here is a good thing for you, Coxput it in."

At home again, he and his wife sat down to talk the charming mystery over; they were in no condition for

sleep. The first question was, Who could the citizen have been who gave the stranger the twenty dollars? It

"Yes," said Richards, "he could have done it, and it would have been like him, but there's not another in the

"Everybody will grant that, Edwardgrant it privately, anyway. For six months, now, the village has been its

"It is what he always called it, to the day of his deathsaid it right out publicly, too."

"Oh, of course; but he didn't care. I reckon he was the besthated man among us, except the Reverend

"Well, Burgess deserves ithe will never get another congregation here. Mean as the town is, it knows how

to estimate HIM. Edward, doesn't it seem odd that the stranger should appoint Burgess to deliver the money?"

The husband seemed perplexed for an answer; the wife kept a steady eye upon him, and waited. Finally

Richards said, with the hesitancy of one who is making a statement which is likely to encounter doubt,

"He is not a bad man. I know. The whole of his unpopularity had its foundation in that one thingthe thing

"That 'one thing,' indeed! As if that 'one thing' wasn't enough, all by itself."

"It is a confession. I am ashamed, but I will make it. I was the only man who knew he was innocent. I could

have saved him, and andwell, you know how the town was wrought upI hadn't the pluck to do it. It

would have turned everybody against me. I felt mean, ever so mean; ut I didn't dare; I hadn't the manliness to

"II don't think it would have done for you totoOne mustn't erpublic opinionone has to be so

careful so" It was a difficult road, and she got mired; but after a little she got started again. "It was a

great pity, but Why, we couldn't afford it, Edwardwe couldn't indeed. Oh, I wouldn't have had you do it

"Oh," exclaimed the wife, in a tone of relief, "I am glad of that. As long as he doesn't know that you could

have saved him, hehe well that makes it a great deal better. Why, I might have known he didn't know,

because he is always trying to be friendly with us, as little encouragement as we give him. More than once

people have twitted me with it. There's the Wilsons, and the Wilcoxes, and the Harknesses, they take a mean

pleasure in saying 'YOUR FRIEND Burgess,' because they know it pesters me. I wish he wouldn't persist in

"I can explain it. It's another confession. When the thing was new and hot, and the town made a plan to ride

him on a rail, my conscience hurt me so that I couldn't stand it, and I went privately and gave him notice, and

"DON'T! It scares me yet, to think of it. I repented of it the minute it was done; and I was even afraid to tell

you lest your face might betray it to somebody. I didn't sleep any that night, for worrying. But after a few

days I saw that no one was going to suspect me, and after that I got to feeling glad I did it. And I feel glad yet,

"So do I, now, for it would have been a dreadful way to treat him. Yes, I'm glad; for really you did owe him

"Certainly. And of course HE didn't care. They persuaded poor old Sawlsberry to go and charge it on him,

and he went blustering over there and did it. Goodson looked him over, like as if he was hunting for a place

on him that he could despise the most; then he says, 'So you are the Committee of Inquiry, are you?'

Sawlsberry said that was about what he was. 'H'm. Do they require particulars, or do you reckon a kind of a

GENERAL answer will do?' 'If they require particulars, I will come back, Mr. Goodson; I will take the

general answer first.' 'Very well, then, tell them to go to hellI reckon that's general enough. And I'll give

you some advice, Sawlsberry; when you come back for the particulars, fetch a basket to carry what is left of

"Just like Goodson; it's got all the marks. He had only one vanity; he thought he could give advice better than

Then they took up the goldsack mystery again, with strong interest. Soon the conversation began to suffer

breaksinterruptions caused by absorbed thinkings. The breaks grew more and more frequent. At last

Richards lost himself wholly in thought. He sat long, gazing vacantly at the floor, and byandby he began to

punctuate his thoughts with little nervous movements of his hands that seemed to indicate vexation.

Meantime his wife too had relapsed into a thoughtful silence, and her movements were beginning to show a

troubled discomfort. Finally Richards got up and strode aimlessly about the room, ploughing his hands

through his hair, much as a somnambulist might do who was having a bad dream. Then he seemed to arrive at

a definite purpose; and without a word he put on his hat and passed quickly out of the house. His wife sat

brooding, with a drawn face, and did not seem to be aware that she was alone. Now and then she murmured,

"Lead us not into t . . . butbutwe are so poor, so poor! . . . Lead us not into . . . Ah, who would be hurt

by it?and no one would ever know . . . Lead us . . . " The voice died out in mumblings. After a little she

"He is gone! But, oh dear, he may be too latetoo late . . . Maybe notmaybe there is still time." She rose

and stood thinking, nervously clasping and unclasping her hands. A slight shudder shook her frame, and she

said, out of a dry throat, "God forgive meit's awful to think such thingsbut . . . Lord, how we are

She turned the light low, and slipped stealthily over and knelt down by the sack and felt of its ridgy sides with

her hands, and fondled them lovingly; and there was a gloating light in her poor old eyes. She fell into fits of

absence; and came half out of them at times to mutter "If we had only waited!oh, if we had only waited a

Meantime Cox had gone home from his office and told his wife all about the strange thing that had happened,

and they had talked it over eagerly, and guessed that the late Goodson was the only man in the town who

could have helped a suffering stranger with so noble a sum as twenty dollars. Then there was a pause, and the

two became thoughtful and silent. And byandby nervous and fidgety. At last the wife said, as if to herself,

The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazed wistfully at his wife, whose face was

become very pale; then he hesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wifea sort of mute

inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand at her throat, then in place of speech she nodded

And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets, from opposite directions. They met,

panting, at the foot of the printingoffice stairs; by the nightlight there they read each other's face. Cox

The men were starting upstairs; at this moment they were overtaken by a boy, and Cox asked,

"Yes, sir. Timetable for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed today, sirhad to get the papers in

twenty minutes earlier than common. I had to rush; if I had been two minutes later"

The men turned and walked slowly away, not waiting to hear the rest. Neither of them spoke during ten

"I see it now, but somehow I never thought, you know, until it was too late. But the next time"

Then the friends separated without a goodnight, and dragged themselves home with the gait of mortally

stricken men. At their homes their wives sprang up with an eager "Well?"then saw the answer with their

eyes and sank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words. In both houses a discussion followed

of a heated sorta new thing; there had been discussions before, but not heated ones, not ungentle ones. The

discussions tonight were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each other. Mrs. Richards said:

"If you had only waited, Edwardif you had only stopped to think; but no, you must run straight to the

"That is nothing; it also said do it privately, if you liked. There, nowis that true, or not?"

"Why, yesyes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would make, and what a compliment it was to

"Oh, certainly, I know all that; but if you had only stopped to think, you would have seen that you

COULDN'T find the right man, because he is in his grave, and hasn't left chick nor child nor relation behind

him; and as long as the money went to somebody that awfully needed it, and nobody would be hurt by it,

She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of some comforting thing to say, and presently came out

"But after all, Mary, it must be for the bestit must be; we know that. And we must remember that it was so

"Ordered! Oh, everything's ORDERED, when a person has to find some way out when he has been stupid.

Just the same, it was ORDERED that the money should come to us in this special way, and it was you that

must take it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providenceand who gave you the right? It was

wicked, that is what it wasjust blasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humble

"But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, like the whole village, till it is absolutely

second nature to us to stop not a single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done"

"Oh, I know it, I know itit's been one everlasting training and training and training in honestyhonesty

shielded, from the very cradle, against every possible temptation, and so it's ARTIFICIAL honesty, and weak

as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this night. God knows I never had shade nor shadow of a

doubt of my petrified and indestructible honesty until nowand now, under the very first big and real

temptation, IEdward, it is my belief that this town's honesty is as rotten as mine is; as rotten as yours. It is

a mean town, a hard, stingy town, and hasn't a virtue in the world but this honesty it is so celebrated for and

so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe that if ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great

temptation, its grand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards. There, now, I've made confession, and I

feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one all my life, without knowing it. Let no man call me honest

"I Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do. It seems strange, too, so strange. I never could

A long silence followed; both were sunk in thought. At last the wife looked up and said:

"You were thinking, if a body could only guess out WHAT THE REMARK WAS that Goodson made to the

"I'm past it. Let us make a pallet here; we've got to stand watch till the bank vault opens in the morning and

"The open sesamewhat could it have been? I do wonder what that remark could have been. But come; we

By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their reconciliation, and were turning into think, to

think, and toss, and fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which Goodson made to

the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark worth forty thousand dollars, cash.

The reason that the village telegraphoffice was open later than usual that night was this: The foreman of

Cox's paper was the local representative of the Associated Press. One might say its honorary representative,

for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnish thirty words that would be accepted. But this time it was

A colossal order! The foreman filled the bill; and he was the proudest man in the State. By breakfasttime the

next morning the name of Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal to the

Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orangegroves of Florida; and millions and millions of people were

discussing the stranger and his moneysack, and wondering if the right man would be found, and hoping

Hadleyburg village woke up worldcelebratedastonishedhappy vain. Vain beyond imagination. Its

nineteen principal citizens and their wives went about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and

smiling, and congratulating, and saying THIS thing adds a new word to the dictionaryHADLEYBURG,

synonym for INCORRUPTIBLE destined to live in dictionaries for ever! And the minor and unimportant

citizens and their wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody ran to the bank to see the

goldsack; and before noon grieved and envious crowds began to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring

towns; and that afternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from everywhere to verify the sack and its

history and write the whole thing up anew, and make dashing freehand pictures of the sack, and of Richards's

house, and the bank, and the Presbyterian church, and the Baptist church, and the public square, and the

townhall where the test would be applied and the money delivered; and damnable portraits of the

Richardses, and Pinkerton the banker, and Cox, and the foreman, and Reverend Burgess, and the

postmasterand even of Jack Halliday, who was the loafing, goodnatured, noaccount, irreverent

fisherman, hunter, boys' friend, straydogs' friend, typical "Sam Lawson" of the town. The little mean,

smirking, oily Pinkerton showed the sack to all comers, and rubbed his sleek palms together pleasantly, and

enlarged upon the town's fine old reputation for honesty and upon this wonderful endorsement of it, and

hoped and believed that the example would now spread far and wide over the American world, and be

By the end of a week things had quieted down again; the wild intoxication of pride and joy had sobered to a

soft, sweet, silent delighta sort of deep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces bore a look of peaceful,

Then a change came. It was a gradual change; so gradual that its beginnings were hardly noticed; maybe were

not noticed at all, except by Jack Halliday, who always noticed everything; and always made fun of it, too, no

matter what it was. He began to throw out chaffing remarks about people not looking quite so happy as they

did a day or two ago; and next he claimed that the new aspect was deepening to positive sadness; next, that it

was taking on a sick look; and finally he said that everybody was become so moody, thoughtful, and

absentminded that he could rob the meanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocket

At this stageor at about this stagea saying like this was dropped at bedtimewith a sigh, usuallyby

"Oh, DON'T! What horrible thing are you mulling in your mind? Put it away from you, for God's sake!"

But that question was wrung from those men again the next nightand got the same retort. But weaker.

And the third night the men uttered the question yet againwith anguish, and absently. This timeand the

following nightthe wives fidgeted feebly, and tried to say something. But didn't.

Halliday's comments grew daily more and more sparklingly disagreeable and disparaging. He went diligently

about, laughing at the town, individually and in mass. But his laugh was the only one left in the village: it fell

upon a hollow and mournful vacancy and emptiness. Not even a smile was findable anywhere. Halliday

carried a cigarbox around on a tripod, playing that it was a camera, and halted all passers and aimed the

thing and said "Ready! now look pleasant, please," but not even this capital joke could surprise the dreary

So three weeks passedone week was left. It was Saturday evening after supper. Instead of the aforetime

Saturdayevening flutter and bustle and shopping and larking, the streets were empty and desolate. Richards

and his old wife sat apart in their little parlourmiserable and thinking. This was become their evening habit

now: the lifelong habit which had preceded it, of reading, knitting, and contented chat, or receiving or

paying neighbourly calls, was dead and gone and forgotten, ages agotwo or three weeks ago; nobody

talked now, nobody read, nobody visitedthe whole village sat at home, sighing, worrying, silent. Trying to

The postman left a letter. Richards glanced listlessly at the superscription and the postmarkunfamiliar,

bothand tossed the letter on the table and resumed his mighthavebeens and his hopeless dull miseries

where he had left them off. Two or three hours later his wife got wearily up and was going away to bed

without a goodnightcustom nowbut she stopped near the letter and eyed it awhile with a dead interest,

then broke it open, and began to skim it over. Richards, sitting there with his chair tilted back against the wall

and his chin between his knees, heard something fall. It was his wife. He sprang to her side, but she cried out:

He did. He devoured it, his brain reeling. The letter was from a distant State, and it said:

"I am a stranger to you, but no matter: I have something to tell. I have just arrived home from Mexico, and

learned about that episode. Of course you do not know who made that remark, but I know, and I am the only

person living who does know. It was GOODSON. I knew him well, many years ago. I passed through your

village that very night, and was his guest till the midnight train came along. I overheard him make that

remark to the stranger in the darkit was in Hale Alley. He and I talked of it the rest of the way home, and

while smoking in his house. He mentioned many of your villagers in the course of his talkmost of them in

a very uncomplimentary way, but two or three favourably: among these latter yourself. I say

'favourably'nothing stronger. I remember his saying he did not actually LIKE any person in the townnot

one; but that youI THINK he said youam almost surehad done him a very great service once,

possibly without knowing the full value of it, and he wished he had a fortune, he would leave it to you when

he died, and a curse apiece for the rest of the citizens. Now, then, if it was you that did him that service, you

are his legitimate heir, and entitled to the sack of gold. I know that I can trust to your honour and honesty, for

in a citizen of Hadleyburg these virtues are an unfailing inheritance, and so I am going to reveal to you the

remark, well satisfied that if you are not the right man you will seek and find the right one and see that poor

Goodson's debt of gratitude for the service referred to is paid. This is the remark 'YOU ARE FAR FROM

"Oh, Edward, the money is ours, and I am so grateful, OH, so grateful,kiss me, dear, it's for ever since we

kissedand we needed it sothe moneyand now you are free of Pinkerton and his bank, and nobody's

It was a happy halfhour that the couple spent there on the settee caressing each other; it was the old days

come againdays that had begun with their courtship and lasted without a break till the stranger brought the

"Oh, Edward, how lucky it was you did him that grand service, poor Goodson! I never liked him, but I love

him now. And it was fine and beautiful of you never to mention it or brag about it." Then, with a touch of

reproach, "But you ought to have told ME, Edward, you ought to have told your wife, you know."

"Now stop hemming and hawing, and tell me about it, Edward. I always loved you, and now I'm proud of

you. Everybody believes there was only one good generous soul in this village, and now it turns out that

She was troubled and silent for a moment, then she laid her hand within his and said:

"No . . . no. We have wandered far enough from our bearingsGod spare us that! In all your life you have

never uttered a lie. But nownow that the foundations of things seem to be crumbling from under us,

wewe" She lost her voice for a moment, then said, brokenly, "Lead us not into temptation. . . I think you

made the promise, Edward. Let it rest so. Let us keep away from that ground. Nowthat is all gone by; let

Edward found it something of an effort to comply, for his mind kept wanderingtrying to remember what

The couple lay awake the most of the night, Mary happy and busy, Edward busy, but not so happy. Mary was

planning what she would do with the money. Edward was trying to recall that service. At first his conscience

was sore on account of the lie he had told Maryif it was a lie. After much reflectionsuppose it WAS a

lie? What then? Was it such a great matter? Aren't we always ACTING lies? Then why not tell them? Look at

Marylook what she had done. While he was hurrying off on his honest errand, what was she doing?

Lamenting because the papers hadn't been destroyed and the money kept. Is theft better than lying?

THAT point lost its stingthe lie dropped into the background and left comfort behind it. The next point

came to the front: HAD he rendered that service? Well, here was Goodson's own evidence as reported in

Stephenson's letter; there could be no better evidence than thatit was even PROOF that he had rendered it.

Of course. So that point was settled. . . No, not quite. He recalled with a wince that this unknown Mr.

Stephenson was just a trifle unsure as to whether the performer of it was Richards or some otherand, oh

dear, he had put Richards on his honour! He must himself decide whither that money must goand Mr.

Stephenson was not doubting that if he was the wrong man he would go honourably and find the right one.

Oh, it was odious to put a man in such a situationah, why couldn't Stephenson have left out that doubt?

Further reflection. How did it happen that RICHARDS'S name remained in Stephenson's mind as indicating

the right man, and not some other man's name? That looked good. Yes, that looked very good. In fact it went

on looking better and better, straight alonguntil byandby it grew into positive PROOF. And then Richards

put the matter at once out of his mind, for he had a private instinct that a proof once established is better left

He was feeling reasonably comfortable now, but there was still one other detail that kept pushing itself on his

notice: of course he had done that servicethat was settled; but what WAS that service? He must recall

ithe would not go to sleep till he had recalled it; it would make his peace of mind perfect. And so he

thought and thought. He thought of a dozen thingspossible services, even probable servicesbut none of

them seemed adequate, none of them seemed large enough, none of them seemed worth the moneyworth

the fortune Goodson had wished he could leave in his will. And besides, he couldn't remember having done

them, anyway. Now, thennow, thenwhat KIND of a service would it be that would make a man so

inordinately grateful? Ahthe saving of his soul! That must be it. Yes, he could remember, now, how he

once set himself the task of converting Goodson, and laboured at it as much ashe was going to say three

months; but upon closer examination it shrunk to a month, then to a week, then to a day, then to nothing. Yes,

he remembered now, and with unwelcome vividness, that Goodson had told him to go to thunder and mind

So that solution was a failurehe hadn't saved Goodson's soul. Richards was discouraged. Then after a little

came another idea: had he saved Goodson's property? No, that wouldn't dohe hadn't any. His life? That is

it! Of course. Why, he might have thought of it before. This time he was on the right track, sure. His

Thereafter, during a stretch of two exhausting hours, he was busy saving Goodson's life. He saved it in all

kinds of difficult and perilous ways. In every case he got it saved satisfactorily up to a certain point; then, just

as he was beginning to get well persuaded that it had really happened, a troublesome detail would turn up

which made the whole thing impossible. As in the matter of drowning, for instance. In that case he had swum

out and tugged Goodson ashore in an unconscious state with a great crowd looking on and applauding, but

when he had got it all thought out and was just beginning to remember all about it, a whole swarm of

disqualifying details arrived on the ground: the town would have known of the circumstance, Mary would

have known of it, it would glare like a limelight in his own memory instead of being an inconspicuous service

which he had possibly rendered "without knowing its full value." And at this point he remembered that he

AhTHERE was a point which he had been overlooking from the start: it had to be a service which he had

rendered "possibly without knowing the full value of it." Why, really, that ought to be an easy huntmuch

easier than those others. And sure enough, byandby he found it. Goodson, years and years ago, came near

marrying a very sweet and pretty girl, named Nancy Hewitt, but in some way or other the match had been

broken off; the girl died, Goodson remained a bachelor, and byandby became a soured one and a frank

despiser of the human species. Soon after the girl's death the village found out, or thought it had found out,

that she carried a spoonful of negro blood in her veins. Richards worked at these details a good while, and in

the end he thought he remembered things concerning them which must have gotten mislaid in his memory

through long neglect. He seemed to dimly remember that it was HE that found out about the negro blood; that

it was he that told the village; that the village told Goodson where they got it; that he thus saved Goodson

from marrying the tainted girl; that he had done him this great service "without knowing the full value of it,"

in fact without knowing that he WAS doing it; but that Goodson knew the value of it, and what a narrow

escape he had had, and so went to his grave grateful to his benefactor and wishing he had a fortune to leave

him. It was all clear and simple, now, and the more he went over it the more luminous and certain it grew;

and at last, when he nestled to sleep, satisfied and happy, he remembered the whole thing just as if it had been

yesterday. In fact, he dimly remembered Goodson's TELLING him his gratitude once. Meantime Mary had

spent six thousand dollars on a new house for herself and a pair of slippers for her pastor, and then had fallen

That same Saturday evening the postman had delivered a letter to each of the other principal

citizensnineteen letters in all. No two of the envelopes were alike, and no two of the superscriptions were

in the same hand, but the letters inside were just like each other in every detail but one. They were exact

copies of the letter received by Richardshandwriting and alland were all signed by Stephenson, but in

All night long eighteen principal citizens did what their castebrother Richards was doing at the same

timethey put in their energies trying to remember what notable service it was that they had unconsciously

And while they were at this work, which was difficult, their wives put in the night spending the money,

which was easy. During that one night the nineteen wives spent an average of seven thousand dollars each out

Next day there was a surprise for Jack Halliday. He noticed that the faces of the nineteen chief citizens and

their wives bore that expression of peaceful and holy happiness again. He could not understand it, neither was

he able to invent any remarks about it that could damage it or disturb it. And so it was his turn to be

dissatisfied with life. His private guesses at the reasons for the happiness failed in all instances, upon

examination. When he met Mrs. Wilcox and noticed the placid ecstasy in her face, he said to himself, "Her

cat has had kittens"and went and asked the cook; it was not so, the cook had detected the happiness, but

did not know the cause. When Halliday found the duplicate ecstasy in the face of "Shadbelly" Billson (village

nickname), he was sure some neighbour of Billson's had broken his leg, but inquiry showed that this had not

happened. The subdued ecstasy in Gregory Yates's face could mean but one thinghe was a motherinlaw

short; it was another mistake. "And PinkertonPinkertonhe has collected ten cents that he thought he was

going to lose." And so on, and so on. In some cases the guesses had to remain in doubt, in the others they

proved distinct errors. In the end Halliday said to himself, "Anyway it roots up that there's nineteen

Hadleyburg families temporarily in heaven: I don't know how it happened; I only know Providence is off

An architect and builder from the next State had lately ventured to set up a small business in this unpromising

village, and his sign had now been hanging out a week. Not a customer yet; he was a discouraged man, and

sorry he had come. But his weather changed suddenly now. First one and then another chief citizen's wife

"Come to my house Monday weekbut say nothing about it for the present. We think of building."

He got eleven invitations that day. That night he wrote his daughter and broke off her match with her student.

Pinkerton the banker and two or three other welltodo men planned countryseatsbut waited. That kind

The Wilsons devised a grand new thinga fancydress ball. They made no actual promises, but told all their

acquaintanceship in confidence that they were thinking the matter over and thought they should give it"and

if we do, you will be invited, of course." People were surprised, and said, one to another, "Why, they are

crazy, those poor Wilsons, they can't afford it." Several among the nineteen said privately to their husbands,

"It is a good idea, we will keep still till their cheap thing is over, then WE will give one that will make it

The days drifted along, and the bill of future squanderings rose higher and higher, wilder and wilder, more

and more foolish and reckless. It began to look as if every member of the nineteen would not only spend his

whole forty thousand dollars before receivingday, but be actually in debt by the time he got the money. In

some cases lightheaded people did not stop with planning to spend, they really spenton credit. They

bought land, mortgages, farms, speculative stocks, fine clothes, horses, and various other things, paid down

the bonus, and made themselves liable for the restat ten days. Presently the sober second thought came,

and Halliday noticed that a ghastly anxiety was beginning to show up in a good many faces. Again he was

puzzled, and didn't know what to make of it. "The Wilcox kittens aren't dead, for they weren't born; nobody's

broken a leg; there's no shrinkage in motherinlaws; NOTHING has happenedit is an insolvable

There was another puzzled man, toothe Rev. Mr. Burgess. For days, wherever he went, people seemed to

follow him or to be watching out for him; and if he ever found himself in a retired spot, a member of the

nineteen would be sure to appear, thrust an envelope privately into his hand, whisper "To be opened at the

townhall Friday evening," then vanish away like a guilty thing. He was expecting that there might be one

claimant for the sackdoubtful, however, Goodson being deadbut it never occurred to him that all this

crowd might be claimants. When the great Friday came at last, he found that he had nineteen envelopes.

The townhall had never looked finer. The platform at the end of it was backed by a showy draping of flags;

at intervals along the walls were festoons of flags; the gallery fronts were clothed in flags; the supporting

columns were swathed in flags; all this was to impress the stranger, for he would be there in considerable

force, and in a large degree he would be connected with the press. The house was full. The 412 fixed seats

were occupied; also the 68 extra chairs which had been packed into the aisles; the steps of the platform were

occupied; some distinguished strangers were given seats on the platform; at the horseshoe of tables which

fenced the front and sides of the platform sat a strong force of special correspondents who had come from

everywhere. It was the bestdressed house the town had ever produced. There were some tolerably expensive

toilets there, and in several cases the ladies who wore them had the look of being unfamiliar with that kind of

clothes. At least the town thought they had that look, but the notion could have arisen from the town's

knowledge of the fact that these ladies had never inhabited such clothes before.

The goldsack stood on a little table at the front of the platform where all the house could see it. The bulk of

the house gazed at it with a burning interest, a mouthwatering interest, a wistful and pathetic interest; a

minority of nineteen couples gazed at it tenderly, lovingly, proprietarily, and the male half of this minority

kept saying over to themselves the moving little impromptu speeches of thankfulness for the audience's

applause and congratulations which they were presently going to get up and deliver. Every now and then one

of these got a piece of paper out of his vest pocket and privately glanced at it to refresh his memory.

Of course there was a buzz of conversation going onthere always is; but at last, when the Rev. Mr. Burgess

rose and laid his hand on the sack, he could hear his microbes gnaw, the place was so still. He related the

curious history of the sack, then went on to speak in warm terms of Hadleyburg's old and wellearned

reputation for spotless honesty, and of the town's just pride in this reputation. He said that this reputation was

a treasure of priceless value; that under Providence its value had now become inestimably enhanced, for the

recent episode had spread this fame far and wide, and thus had focussed the eyes of the American world upon

this village, and made its name for all time, as he hoped and believed, a synonym for commercial

incorruptibility. [Applause.] "And who is to be the guardian of this noble famethe community as a whole?

No! The responsibility is individual, not communal. From this day forth each and every one of you is in his

own person its special guardian, and individually responsible that no harm shall come to it. Do you does

each of youaccept this great trust? [Tumultuous assent.] Then all is well. Transmit it to your children and

to your children's children. Today your purity is beyond reproachsee to it that it shall remain so. Today

there is not a person in your community who could be beguiled to touch a penny not his ownsee to it that

you abide in this grace. ["We will! we will!"] This is not the place to make comparisons between ourselves

and other communitiessome of them ungracious towards us; they have their ways, we have ours; let us be

content. [Applause.] I am done. Under my hand, my friends, rests a stranger's eloquent recognition of what

we are; through him the world will always henceforth know what we are. We do not know who he is, but in

your name I utter your gratitude, and ask you to raise your voices in indorsement."

The house rose in a body and made the walls quake with the thunders of its thankfulness for the space of a

long minute. Then it sat down, and Mr. Burgess took an envelope out of his pocket. The house held its breath

while he slit the envelope open and took from it a slip of paper. He read its contentsslowly and

impressivelythe audience listening with tranced attention to this magic document, each of whose words

"'The remark which I made to the distressed stranger was this: "You are very far from being a bad man; go,

and reform."'" Then he continued: "We shall know in a moment now whether the remark here quoted

corresponds with the one concealed in the sack; and if that shall prove to be soand it undoubtedly

willthis sack of gold belongs to a fellowcitizen who will henceforth stand before the nation as the symbol

of the special virtue which has made our town famous throughout the landMr. Billson!"

The house had gotten itself all ready to burst into the proper tornado of applause; but instead of doing it, it

seemed stricken with a paralysis; there was a deep hush for a moment or two, then a wave of whispered

murmurs swept the placeof about this tenor: "BILLSON! oh, come, this is TOO thin! Twenty dollars to a

stranger or ANYBODYBILLSON! Tell it to the marines!" And now at this point the house caught its

breath all of a sudden in a new access of astonishment, for it discovered that whereas in one part of the hall

Deacon Billson was standing up with his head weekly bowed, in another part of it Lawyer Wilson was doing

the same. There was a wondering silence now for a while. Everybody was puzzled, and nineteen couples

"Because I have a right to. Perhaps you will be good enough to explain to the house why YOU rise."

It was Burgess's turn to be paralysed. He stood looking vacantly at first one of the men and then the other,

and did not seem to know what to do. The house was stupefied. Lawyer Wilson spoke up now, and said:

"There!" shouted Billson, "what have you got to say for yourself now? And what kind of apology are you

going to make to me and to this insulted house for the imposture which you have attempted to play here?"

"No apologies are due, sir; and as for the rest of it, I publicly charge you with pilfering my note from Mr.

Burgess and substituting a copy of it signed with your own name. There is no other way by which you could

have gotten hold of the testremark; I alone, of living men, possessed the secret of its wording."

There was likely to be a scandalous state of things if this went on; everybody noticed with distress that the

shorthand scribes were scribbling like mad; many people were crying "Chair, chair! Order! order!" Burgess

"Let us not forget the proprieties due. There has evidently been a mistake somewhere, but surely that is all. If

He took one out of his pocket, opened it, glanced at it, looked surprised and worried, and stood silent a few

moments. Then he waved his hand in a wandering and mechanical way, and made an effort or two to say

"'The remark which I made to the unhappy stranger was this: "You are far from being a bad man. [The house

gazed at him marvelling.] Go, and reform."' [Murmurs: "Amazing! what can this mean?"] This one," said the

"There!" cried Wilson, "I reckon that settles it! I knew perfectly well my note was purloined."

"Purloined!" retorted Billson. "I'll let you know that neither you nor any man of your kidney must venture

They obeyed, shaking their heads and grumbling angrily. The house was profoundly puzzled; it did not know

what to do with this curious emergency. Presently Thompson got up. Thompson was the hatter. He would

have liked to be a Nineteener; but such was not for him; his stock of hats was not considerable enough for the

"Mr. Chairman, if I may be permitted to make a suggestion, can both of these gentlemen be right? I put it to

you, sir, can both have happened to say the very same words to the stranger? It seems to me"

The tanner got up and interrupted him. The tanner was a disgruntled man; he believed himself entitled to be a

Nineteener, but he couldn't get recognition. It made him a little unpleasant in his ways and speech. Said he:

"Sho, THAT'S not the point! THAT could happentwice in a hundred yearsbut not the other thing.

The Chair. "Order! Sit down, if you pleaseboth of you. Neither of the notes has been out of my possession

The Tanner. "Mr. Chairman, one thing is now plain: one of these men has been eavesdropping under the

other one's bed, and filching family secrets. If it is not unparliamentary to suggest it, I will remark that both

are equal to it. [The Chair. "Order! order!"] I withdraw the remark, sir, and will confine myself to suggesting

that IF one of them has overheard the other reveal the testremark to his wife, we shall catch him now."

The Tanner. "Easily. The two have not quoted the remark in exactly the same words. You would have noticed

that, if there hadn't been a considerable stretch of time and an exciting quarrel inserted between the two

The Tanner. "And so, if the Chair will examine the testremark in the sack, we shall know which of these

two frauds[The Chair. "Order!"]which of these two adventurers[The Chair. "Order! order!"]which

of these two gentlemen[laughter and applause]is entitled to wear the belt as being the first dishonest

blatherskite ever bred in this townwhich he has dishonoured, and which will be a sultry place for him from

Mr. Burgess made a slit in the sack, slid his hand in, and brought out an envelope. In it were a couple of

"One of these is marked, 'Not to be examined until all written communications which have been addressed to

the Chairif anyshall have been read.' The other is marked 'THE TEST.' Allow me. It is wordedto wit:

"'I do not require that the first half of the remark which was made to me by my benefactor shall be quoted

with exactness, for it was not striking, and could be forgotten; but its closing fifteen words are quite striking,

and I think easily rememberable; unless THESE shall be accurately reproduced, let the applicant be regarded

as an impostor. My benefactor began by saying he seldom gave advice to anyone, but that it always bore the

hallmark of high value when he did give it. Then he said thisand it has never faded from my memory:

Fifty Voices. "That settles itthe money's Wilson's! Wilson! Wilson! Speech! Speech!"

People jumped up and crowded around Wilson, wringing his hand and congratulating ferventlymeantime

"Order, gentlemen! Order! Order! Let me finish reading, please." When quiet was restored, the reading was

A ghastly silence followed. First an angry cloud began to settle darkly upon the faces of the citizenship; after

a pause the cloud began to rise, and a tickled expression tried to take its place; tried so hard that it was only

kept under with great and painful difficulty; the reporters, the Brixtonites, and other strangers bent their heads

down and shielded their faces with their hands, and managed to hold in by main strength and heroic courtesy.

At this most inopportune time burst upon the stillness the roar of a solitary voiceJack Halliday's:

Then the house let go, strangers and all. Even Mr. Burgess's gravity broke down presently, then the audience

considered itself officially absolved from all restraint, and it made the most of its privilege. It was a good

long laugh, and a tempestuously wholehearted one, but it ceased at lastlong enough for Mr. Burgess to try

to resume, and for the people to get their eyes partially wiped; then it broke out again, and afterward yet

"It is useless to try to disguise the factwe find ourselves in the presence of a matter of grave import. It

involves the honour of your townit strikes at the town's good name. The difference of a single word

between the testremarks offered by Mr. Wilson and Mr. Billson was itself a serious thing, since it indicated

The two men were sitting limp, nerveless, crushed; but at these words both were electrified into movement,

"Sit down!" said the Chair, sharply, and they obeyed. "That, as I have said, was a serious thing. And it

wasbut for only one of them. But the matter has become graver; for the honour of BOTH is now in

formidable peril. Shall I go even further, and say in inextricable peril? BOTH left out the crucial fifteen

words." He paused. During several moments he allowed the pervading stillness to gather and deepen its

impressive effects, then added: "There would seem to be but one way whereby this could happen. I ask these

Billson was not used to emergencies; he sat in a helpless collapse. But Wilson was a lawyer. He struggled to

"I ask the indulgence of the house while I explain this most painful matter. I am sorry to say what I am about

to say, since it must inflict irreparable injury upon Mr. Billson, whom I have always esteemed and respected

until now, and in whose invulnerability to temptation I entirely believedas did you all. But for the

preservation of my own honour I must speakand with frankness. I confess with shameand I now

beseech your pardon for itthat I said to the ruined stranger all of the words contained in the testremark,

including the disparaging fifteen. [Sensation.] When the late publication was made I recalled them, and I

resolved to claim the sack of coin, for by every right I was entitled to it. Now I will ask you to consider this

point, and weigh it well; that stranger's gratitude to me that night knew no bounds; he said himself that he

could find no words for it that were adequate, and that if he should ever be able he would repay me a

thousandfold. Now, then, I ask you this; could I expectcould I believecould I even remotely

imaginethat, feeling as he did, he would do so ungrateful a thing as to add those quite unnecessary fifteen

words to his test?set a trap for me?expose me as a slanderer of my own town before my own people

assembled in a public hall? It was preposterous; it was impossible. His test would contain only the kindly

opening clause of my remark. Of that I had no shadow of doubt. You would have thought as I did. You would

not have expected a base betrayal from one whom you had befriended and against whom you had committed

no offence. And so with perfect confidence, perfect trust, I wrote on a piece of paper the opening

wordsending with "Go, and reform," and signed it. When I was about to put it in an envelope I was

called into my back office, and without thinking I left the paper lying open on my desk." He stopped, turned

his head slowly toward Billson, waited a moment, then added: "I ask you to note this; when I returned, a little

"Those are the simple facts. My note was now lying in a different place on the table from where I had left it. I

noticed that, but attached no importance to it, thinking a draught had blown it there. That Mr. Billson would

read a private paper was a thing which could not occur to me; he was an honourable man, and he would be

above that. If you will allow me to say it, I think his extra word 'VERY' stands explained: it is attributable to

a defect of memory. I was the only man in the world who could furnish here any detail of the testmarkby

There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the

convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practised in the tricks and delusions of oratory.

Wilson sat down victorious. The house submerged him in tides of approving applause; friends swarmed to

him and shook him by the hand and congratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed to say

The Hatter. "I move three cheers for Mr. Wilson, Symbol of the special virtue which"

The cheers burst forth before he could finish; and in the midst of themand in the midst of the clamour of

the gavel alsosome enthusiasts mounted Wilson on a big friend's shoulder and were going to fetch him in

"Order! To your places! You forget that there is still a document to be read." When quiet had been restored he

took up the document, and was going to read it, but laid it down again saying "I forgot; this is not to be read

until all written communications received by me have first been read." He took an envelope out of his pocket,

removed its enclosure, glanced at itseemed astonishedheld it out and gazed at itstared at it.

"'The remark which I made to the stranger[Voices. "Hello! how's this?"]was this: 'You are far from

being a bad man. [Voices. "Great Scott!"] Go, and reform.'" [Voice. "Oh, saw my leg off!"] Signed by Mr.

The pandemonium of delight which turned itself loose now was of a sort to make the judicious weep. Those

whose withers were unwrung laughed till the tears ran down; the reporters, in throes of laughter, set down

disordered pothooks which would never in the world be decipherable; and a sleeping dog jumped up scared

out of its wits, and barked itself crazy at the turmoil. All manner of cries were scattered through the din:

"We're getting richTWO Symbols of Incorruptibility!without counting Billson!" "THREE! count

Shadbelly inwe can't have too many!" "All rightBillson's elected!" "Alas, poor Wilson! victim of TWO

A Powerful Voice. "Silence! The Chair's fished up something more out of its pocket."

The Chair [reading]. "'The remark which I made,' etc. 'You are far from being a bad man. Go,' etc. Signed,

The house was in a roaring humour now, and ready to get all the fun out of the occasion that might be in it.

Several Nineteeners, looking pale and distressed, got up and began to work their way towards the aisles, but a

"The doors, the doorsclose the doors; no Incorruptible shall leave this place! Sit down, everybody!" The

The Chair fished again, and once more the familiar words began to fall from its lips"'You are far from

Somebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving out "it's") to the lovely "Mikado" tune of "When

a man's afraid of a beautiful maid;" the audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, somebody contributed

The house roared that one too. As the last note died, Jack Halliday's voice rose high and clear, freighted with

That was sung, with booming enthusiasm. Then the happy house started in at the beginning and sang the four

lines through twice, with immense swing and dash, and finished up with a crashing threetimes three and a

tiger for "Hadleyburg the Incorruptible and all Symbols of it which we shall find worthy to receive the

A dozen men got up now and began to protest. They said that this farce was the work of some abandoned

joker, and was an insult to the whole community. Without a doubt these signatures were all forgeries

"Sit down! sit down! Shut up! You are confessing. We'll find your names in the lot."

"Perhaps they all contain the secret. I move that you open them all and read every signature that is attached to

It was put and carrieduproariously. Then poor old Richards got up, and his wife rose and stood at his side.

Her head was bent down, so that none might see that she was crying. Her husband gave her his arm, and so

"My friends, you have known us twoMary and meall our lives, and I think you have liked us and

"Allow me. It is quite truethat which you are saying, Mr. Richards; this town DOES know you two; it

"That's the hallmarked truth, too! If the Chair is right, let the house speak up and say it. Rise! Now,

The house rose in mass, faced toward the old couple eagerly, filled the air with a snowstorm of waving

"What I was going to say is this: We know your good heart, Mr. Richards, but this is not a time for the

exercise of charity toward offenders. [Shouts of "Right! right!"] I see your generous purpose in your face, but

"Please take your seat, Mr. Richards. We must examine the rest of these notessimple fairness to the men

who have already been exposed requires this. As soon as that has been doneI give you my word for

Many voices. "Right!the Chair is rightno interruption can be permitted at this stage! Go on!the

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."

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 wellknown church chant)"You are far from being a baaad 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 testremark from the beginning to the

closing words, "And go to hell or Hadleyburg try and make it the forormer!" and in these special

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

lipssullied. Be mercifulfor 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

Burgess put his hand into his pocket. The old couple, trembling, began to rise. Burgess fumbled a moment,

Faint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their seats, and Mary whispered:

"Oh, bless God, we are saved!he has lost oursI wouldn't give this for a hundred of those sacks!"

The house burst out with its "Mikado" travesty, and sang it three times with everincreasing enthusiasm,

and finishing up with cheers and a tiger for "Hadleyburg purity and our eighteen immortal representatives of

Then Wingate, the saddler, got up and proposed cheers "for the cleanest man in town, the one solitary

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

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 apieceand that remarkeach in his

turnit took twentytwo minutes for the procession to move past. Staked the strangertotal contribution,

$360. All they want is just the loan backand interestforty thousand dollars altogether."

Many Voices [derisively.] "That's it! Divvy! divvy! Be kind to the poordon'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 farreaching lustre."

[Enthusiastic outburst of sarcastic applause.] That seems to be all. Nohere is a postscript:

"'P.S.CITIZENS OF HADLEYBURG: There IS no testremarknobody made one. [Great sensation.]

There wasn't any pauper stranger, nor any twentydollar contribution, nor any accompanying benediction and

complimentthese are all inventions. [General buzz and hum of astonishment and delight.] Allow me to tell

my storyit 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 alland, anyway, made as I am, even that would not have satisfied me. I wanted

to damage every man in the place, and every womanand not in their bodies or in their estate, but in their

vanitythe 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 itit 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 testsecret,

but I shall catch the most of them, if I know Hadleyburg nature. [Voices. "Righthe got every last one of

them."] I believe they will even steal ostensible GAMBLEmoney, rather than miss, poor, tempted, and

mistrained fellows. I am hoping to eternally and everlastingly squelch your vanity and give Hadleyburg a new

renownone that will STICKand spread far. If I have succeeded, open the sack and summon the

A Cyclone of Voices. "Open it! Open it! The Eighteen to the front! Committee on Propagation of the

The Chair ripped the sack wide, and gathered up a handful of bright, broad, yellow coins, shook them

There was a crashing outbreak of delight over this news, and when the noise had subsided, the tanner called

"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."

Wilson [in a voice trembling with anger]. "You will allow me to say, and without apologies for my language,

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

twentydollar pieces, and give the result to the right manthe man whom Hadleyburg delights to

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,

At the beginning of the auction Richards whispered in distress to his wife: "Oh, Mary, can we allow it? Itit

you see, it is an honourreward, a testimonial to purity of character, andandcan we allow it? Hadn't

I better get up andOh, 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!thirtythanks 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

"It is another temptation, EdwardI'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 fSEVEN hundred!"] And yet, Edward,

when you thinknobody susp["Eight hundred dollars! hurrah!make it nine!Mr. Parsons, did I

hear you saythanks! nine!this noble sack of virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars, gilding

and all come! do I heara 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

Edward fellthat is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not satisfied, but which was overpowered

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 thatthe dramatic unities require it; they must

buy the sack they tried to steal; they must pay a heavy price, toosome 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 deucesAND with a straight

flush, and by rights the pot is his. And it shall be a jackpot, too, if I can manage it. He disappointed me, but

He was watching the bidding. At a thousand, the market broke: the prices tumbled swiftly. He waitedand

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 fiftydollar jump, and the sack was hisat $1,282. The house broke out in cheersthen stopped; for he

"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 twentydollar 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 tomorrow. [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 majorityI would like a twothirds voteI 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

Ninetenths of the audience were on their feet in a momentdog and alland the proposition was carried

They sat down, and all the Symbols except "Dr." Clay Harkness got up, violently protesting against the

"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

"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

"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 tomorrow, and to hand these three

"At nine I will call for the sack, and at eleven will deliver the rest of the ten thousand to Mr. Richards in

Then he slipped out, and left the audience making a vast noise, which was composed of a mixture of cheers,

the "Mikado" song, dogdisapproval, and the chant, "You are far from being a baad man aaa

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, EdwardMUCH to blame?" and her eyes wandered to the accusing triplet of

big banknotes 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:

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. Butit seems to me, now Edward?"

"Before I was not afraid to let oceans of people's money pour through my hands, but Mary, I am so tired,

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 bankdrawn to

"Bearer,"four for $1,500 each, and one for $34,000. He put one of the former in his pocketbook, 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

"I am sure I recognised him! Last night it seemed to me that maybe I had seen him somewhere before."

"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 banknotes makes more bulk than that."

"Cheques signed by Stephenson! I am resigned to take the $8,500 if it could come in banknotesfor it does

seem that it was so ordered, Marybut 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

"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.

"Look herelook at this! Fifteenfifteenfifteenthirtyfour. Thirtyeight thousand five hundred!

Mary, the sack isn't worth twelve dollars, and Harknessapparentlyhas paid about par for it."

"A hint to collect them at some distant bank, I reckon. Perhaps Harkness doesn't want the matter known.

"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 youand 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 selfrighteous community. I have lost. Take the whole pot, you are

"If those beautiful words were deserved, Maryand God knows I believed I deserved them onceI 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,

A messenger arrived and delivered an envelope. Richards took from it a note and read it; it was from

"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

"Saved, once more. And on such terms!" He put the note in the lire. "II wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I

"Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward. The stabs, through their very generosity, are so deepand they

Three days before the election each of two thousand voters suddenly found himself in possession of a prized

mementoone of the renowned bogus doubleeagles. 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

Within twentyfour 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 meanit might meanoh, 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 questionsquestions 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 guiltguilt of some fearful sort or otherwithout 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

"The noteBurgess'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 trapand like a

"Oh, it is dreadfulI know what you are going to say he didn't return your transcript of the pretended

"Nokept it to destroy us with. Mary, he has exposed us to some already. I know itI know it well. I saw it

in a dozen faces after church. Ah, he wouldn't answer our nod of recognitionhe knew what he had been

In the night the doctor was called. The news went around in the morning that the old couple were rather

seriously illprostrated 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

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 chequesfor $8,500? Nofor an amazing sum$38,500! What

The following day the nurses had more newsand 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 pillowvanished away.

"You will never see them againthey are destroyed. They came from Satan. I saw the hellbrand 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.

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,

"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 artificiallylike 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

"No one has betrayed anything to me" "And then he did a natural and justifiable thing; he repented of the

Burgess's impassioned protestations fell upon deaf ears; the dying man passed away without knowing that

The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen a prey to the fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of

By act of the Legislatureupon prayer and petitionHadleyburg was allowed to change its name to (never

mind whatI will not give it away), and leave one word out of the motto that for many generations had

It is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that catches it napping again.