t to bed now."

"And sleep?"

"No; think."

"Yes; think."

By this time the Coxes too had completed their spat and their
reconciliation, and were turning in--to think, to think, and toss, and
fret, and worry over what the remark could possibly have been which
Goodson made to the stranded derelict; that golden remark; that remark
worth forty thousand dollars, cash.

The reason that the village telegraph-office was open later than usual
that night was this: The foreman of Cox's paper was the local
representative of the Associated Press. One might say its honorary
representative, for it wasn't four times a year that he could furnish
thirty words that would be accepted. But this time it was different. His
despatch stating what he had caught got an instant answer:

"Send the whole thing--all the details--twelve hundred words."

A colossal order! The foreman filled the bill; and he was the proudest
man in the State. By breakfast-time the next morning the name of
Hadleyburg the Incorruptible was on every lip in America, from Montreal
to the Gulf, from the glaciers of Alaska to the orange-groves of Florida;
and millions and millions of people were discussing the stranger and his
money-sack, and wondering if the right man would be found, and hoping
some more news about the matter would come soon--right away.

II.

Hadleyburg village woke up world-celebrated--astonished--happy--vain.
Vain beyond imagination. Its nineteen principal citizens and their wives
went about shaking hands with each other, and beaming, and smiling, and
congratulating, and saying _this_ thing adds a new word to the
dictionary--_Hadleyburg_, synonym for _incorruptible_--destined to live
in dictionaries for ever! And the minor and unimportant citizens and
their wives went around acting in much the same way. Everybody ran to
the bank to see the gold-sack; and before noon grieved and envious crowds
began to flock in from Brixton and all neighbouring towns; and that
afternoon and next day reporters began to arrive from everywhere to
verify the sack and its 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 Rev