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-pot, too, if

I can manage it. He disappointed me, but let that pass."

The Man that Corrupted Hadleyburg