efaulter had his home,
and where, in spite of his reputation for the strictest probity, it was
universally believed that he had run away with other people's money
merely because he had been absent twenty-four hours without accounting
for his whereabouts.

At this point Maxwell wove in the material he had gathered on his visit
to Hatboro', and without using names or persons contrived to give a
vivid impression of the situation and the local feeling. He aimed at the
historical attitude, and with some imitation of Taino's method and
manner, he achieved it. His whole account of the defalcation had a
closeness of texture which involved every significant detail, from the
first chance suspicion of the defaulter's honesty, to the final opinions
and conjectures of his fate. At the same time the right relation and
proportion of the main facts were kept, and the statement was throughout
so dignified and dispassionate that it had the grace of something remote
in time and place. It was when the narrative ended and the critical
comment began that the artistic values made themselves felt. Ricker had
been free in his recognition of the excellence of Maxwell's work, and
quick to appreciate its importance to the paper. He made the young
fellow disjointed compliments and recurrent predictions concerning it
when they were together, but there were qualities in it that he felt
afterwards he had not been just to. Of course it owed much to the mere
accident of Maxwell's accumulation of material about defalcations for
his play; but he had known men break down under the mass of their
material, and it surprised and delighted him to see how easily and
strongly Maxwell handled his. That sick little youngster carried it all
off with an air of robust maturity that amused as well as surprised
Ricker. He saw where the fellow had helped himself out, consciously or
unconsciously, with the style and method of his favorite authors; and he
admired the philosophic poise he had studied from them; but no one
except Maxwell himself was in the secret of the forbearance, the humane
temperance with which Northwick was treated. This was a color from the
play which had gone to pieces in his hands; he simply adapted the
conception of a typical defaulter, as he had evolved it from a hundred
instances, to the case of the defaulter in hand, and it fitted
perfectly. He had meant his imaginary defaulter to appeal rather to the
compassion than the justice of the theatre, a