ng of the auction Richards whispered in distress to
his wife: "Oh, Mary, can we allow it? It--it--you see, it is an
honour--reward, a testimonial to purity of character, and--and--can
we allow it? Hadn't I better get up and--Oh, 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!--thirty--thanks 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 two
h--thanks!--two hundred and fifty!--")

"It is another temptation, Edward--I'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 f--SEVEN hundred!") And yet, Edward,
when you think--nobody susp--("Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make it
nine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--nine!--this noble
sack of virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars, gilding and
all--come! do I hear--a 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 poor!--but--but--do as
you think best--do as you think best."

Edward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not
satisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances.

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 that--the dramatic unities require it; they
must buy the sack they tried to steal; they must pay a heavy price,
too--some 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 deuces--AND with a straight
flush, and by rights the pot is his. And it shall be a jack-p