Multimedia Mania/abacus-multimedia-mania.iso/dp/0131/01315.txt

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$Unique_ID{bob01315}
$Pretitle{}
$Title{Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, The
Chapter 4}
$Subtitle{}
$Author{Twain, Mark}
$Affiliation{}
$Subject{mary
richards
checks
burgess
old
edward
now
am
oh
note
see
pictures
see
figures
}
$Date{1901}
$Log{See Mr. Richards*0131501.scf
}
Title:       Man That Corrupted Hadleyburg, The
Author:      Twain, Mark
Date:        1901

Chapter 4

     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 checks on a metropolitan bank - drawn to
"Bearer," - four for $1500 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 leg, and gasped out:

     "I am sure I recognized 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 checks 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; $8500 in even the largest
bank-notes makes more bulk than that."

     "Edward, why do you object to checks?"

     "Checks signed by Stephenson!  I am resigned to take the $8500 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
check 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 checks - "

     "Oh, Edward, it is too bad!" and she held up the checks 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 checks 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 checks."

     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 honor you - and that
     is sincere, too. This town is not worthy to kiss the hem of your garment.
     Dear sir, I made a square bet with myself that there were nineteen
     debauchable men in your self-righteous community.  I have lost.  Take
     the whole pot, you are entitled to it."

     Richards drew a deep sigh, and said:

     "It seems written with fire - it burns so.  Mary - I am miserable again."

     "I, too.  Ah, dear, I wish - "

     "To think, Mary - he believes in me."

     "Oh, don't, Edward - I can't bear it."

     "If those beautiful words were deserved, Mary - and God knows I believed
I deserved them once - I think I could give the forty thousand dollars for
them.  And I would put that paper away, as representing more than gold and
jewels, and keep it always.  But now - We could not live in the shadow of its
accusing presence, Mary."

     He put it in the fire.

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

          "You saved me, in a difficult time.  I saved you last night.
     It was at cost of a lie, but I made the sacrifice freely, and out of
     a grateful heart. None in this village knows so well as I know how
     brave and good and noble you are.  At bottom you cannot respect me,
     knowing as you do of that matter of which I am accused, and by the
     general voice condemned; but I beg that you will at least believe that
     I am a grateful man; it will help me to bear my burden.

               [Signed] "Burgess."

     "Saved, once more.  And on such terms!" He put the note in the fire. "I -
I wish I were dead, Mary, I wish I were out of it all."

     "Oh, these are bitter, bitter days, Edward.  The stabs, through their
very generosity, are so deep - and they come so fast!"

     Three days before the election each of two thousand voters suddenly found
himself in possession of a prized memento - one of the renowned bogus
double-eagles.  Around one of its faces was stamped these words: "The Remark I
Made To The Poor Stranger Was - " Around the other face was stamped these:
"Go, And Reform.  [Signed] Pinkerton." Thus the entire remaining refuse of the
renowned joke was emptied upon a single head, and with calamitous effect. It
revived the recent vast laugh and concentrated it upon Pinkerton; and
Harkness's election was a walk-over.

     Within twenty-four hours after the Richardses had received their checks
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
checks - for $8500?  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 checks, 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 checks - "

     "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 checks 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.
Richard'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.

[See Mr. Richards: The last of the sacred Nineteen had fallen prey to the
fiendish sack; the town was stripped of the last rag of its ancient glory.]


     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.

     Former Motto: Lead Us Not Into Temptation
     Revised Motto: Lead Us Into Temptation