and higher, the
bidders got on their mettle and grew steadily more and more daring, more
and more determined, the jumps went from a dollar up to five, then to
ten, then to twenty, then fifty, then to a hundred, then--

At the beginning 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