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 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