The Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg Read online

nervous and fidgety. At last the wife said, as if to herself,

  "Nobody knows this secret but the Richardses . . . and us . . . nobody."

  The husband came out of his thinkings with a slight start, and gazedwistfully at his wife, whose face was become very pale; then hehesitatingly rose, and glanced furtively at his hat, then at his wife--asort of mute inquiry. Mrs. Cox swallowed once or twice, with her hand ather throat, then in place of speech she nodded her head. In a moment shewas alone, and mumbling to herself.

  And now Richards and Cox were hurrying through the deserted streets, fromopposite directions. They met, panting, at the foot of theprinting-office stairs; by the night-light there they read each other'sface. Cox whispered:

  "Nobody knows about this but us?"

  The whispered answer was:

  "Not a soul--on honour, not a soul!"

  "If it isn't too late to--"

  The men were starting up-stairs; at this moment they were overtaken by aboy, and Cox asked,

  "Is that you, Johnny?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "You needn't ship the early mail--nor _any_ mail; wait till I tell you."

  "It's already gone, sir."

  "_Gone_?" It had the sound of an unspeakable disappointment in it.

  "Yes, sir. Time-table for Brixton and all the towns beyond changed to-day, sir--had to get the papers in twenty minutes earlier than common. Ihad 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 minutes; then Cox said, in a vexed tone,

  "What possessed you to be in such a hurry, _I_ can't make out."

  The answer was humble enough:

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

  "Next time be hanged! It won't come in a thousand years."

  Then the friends separated without a good-night, and dragged themselveshome with the gait of mortally stricken men. At their homes their wivessprang up with an eager "Well?"--then saw the answer with their eyes andsank down sorrowing, without waiting for it to come in words. In bothhouses a discussion followed of a heated sort--a new thing; there hadbeen discussions before, but not heated ones, not ungentle ones. Thediscussions to-night were a sort of seeming plagiarisms of each other.Mrs. Richards said:

  "If you had only waited, Edward--if you had only stopped to think; butno, you must run straight to the printing-office and spread it all overthe world."

  "It _said_ publish it."

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

  "Why, yes--yes, it is true; but when I thought what a stir it would make,and what a compliment it was to Hadleyburg that a stranger should trustit so--"

  "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 isin 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, andnobody would be hurt by it, and--and--"

  She broke down, crying. Her husband tried to think of some comfortingthing to say, and presently came out with this:

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

  "Ordered! Oh, everything's _ordered_, when a person has to find some wayout when he has been stupid. Just the same, it was _ordered_ that themoney should come to us in this special way, and it was you that musttake it on yourself to go meddling with the designs of Providence--andwho gave you the right? It was wicked, that is what it was--justblasphemous presumption, and no more becoming to a meek and humbleprofessor of--"

  "But, Mary, you know how we have been trained all our lives long, likethe whole village, till it is absolutely second nature to us to stop nota single moment to think when there's an honest thing to be done--"

  "Oh, I know it, I know it--it's been one everlasting training andtraining and training in honesty--honesty shielded, from the very cradle,against every possible temptation, and so it's _artificial_ honesty, andweak as water when temptation comes, as we have seen this night. Godknows I never had shade nor shadow of a doubt of my petrified andindestructible honesty until now--and now, under the very first big andreal temptation, I--Edward, it is my belief that this town's honesty isas 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 socelebrated for and so conceited about; and so help me, I do believe thatif ever the day comes that its honesty falls under great temptation, itsgrand reputation will go to ruin like a house of cards. There, now, I'vemade confession, and I feel better; I am a humbug, and I've been one allmy life, without knowing it. Let no man call me honest again--I will nothave it."

  "I--Well, Mary, I feel a good deal as you do: I certainly do. It seemsstrange, too, so strange. I never could have believed it--never."

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

  "I know what you are thinking, Edward."

  Richards had the embarrassed look of a person who is caught.

  "I am ashamed to confess it, Mary, but--"

  "It's no matter, Edward, I was thinking the same question myself."

  "I hope so. State it."

  "You were thinking, if a body could only guess out _what the remark was_that Goodson made to the stranger."

  "It's perfectly true. I feel guilty and ashamed. And you?"

  "I'm past it. Let us make a pallet here; we've got to stand watch tillthe bank vault opens in the morning and admits the sack. . . Oh dear, ohdear--if we hadn't made the mistake!"

  The pallet was made, and Mary said:

  "The open sesame--what could it have been? I do wonder what that remarkcould have been. But come; we will get to bed now."

  "And sleep?"

  "No; think."

  "Yes; think."

  By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and theirreconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and toss, andfret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been whichGoodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remarkworth forty thousand dollars, cash.

  The reason that the village telegraph-office was open later than usualthat night was this: The foreman of Cox's paper was the localrepresentative of the Associated Press. One might say its honoraryrepresentative, for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnishthirty words that would be accepted. But this time it was different. Hisdespatch stating what he had caught got an instant answer:

  "Send the whole thing--all the details--twelve hundred words."

  A colossal order! The foreman filled the bill; and he was the proudestman in the State. By breakfast-time the next morning the name ofHadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montrealto the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida;and millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and hismoney-sack, and wondering if the right man would be found, and hopingsome more news about the matter would come soon--right away.