s history and write the whole thing up anew, and make dashing
free-hand 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 town-hall 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 postmaster--and even of Jack Halliday, who was the loafing,
good-natured, no-account, irreverent fisherman, hunter, boys' friend,
stray-dogs' 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 epoch-making in the matter of moral
regeneration. And so on, and so on.

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
delight--a sort of deep, nameless, unutterable content. All faces bore a
look of peaceful, holy happiness.

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 absent-minded that he could rob the
meanest man in town of a cent out of the bottom of his breeches pocket
and not disturb his reverie.

At this stage--or at about this stage--a saying like this was dropped
at bedtime--with a sigh, usually--by the head of each of the nineteen
principal households:

"Ah, what COULD have been the remark that Goodson made?"

And straightway--with a shudder--came this, from the man's wife:

"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 night--and got
the same retort. But weaker.

And the third night the men uttered the question yet again--w