eyes on me, but no one stirred, none uttered a sound. There was
something awful in this preternatural silence, made more impressive by
the hoarse murmur of the crowd outside, breaking down the door. I could
endure it no longer, but strode forward and snatched up the paper lying
at the feet of the chairman. At the head of the editorial columns, in
letters half an inch long, were the following amazing head-lines:

"Dastardly Outrage! Corruption Rampant in Our Midst! The Vampires
Foiled! Henry Barber at his Old Game! The Rat Gnaws a File! The
Democratic Hordes Attempt to Ride Roughshod Over a Free People! Base
Endeavor to Bribe the Editor of this Paper with _a Twenty-Dollar Note_!
The Money Given to the Orphan Asylum."

I read no farther, but stood stockstill in the center of the floor, and
fell into a reverie. Twenty dollars! Somehow it seemed a mere trifle.
Nine hundred and eighty dollars! I did not know there was so much money
in the world. Twenty--no, eighty--one thousand dollars! There were big,
black figures floating all over the floor. Incessant cataracts of them
poured down the walls, stopped, and shied off as I looked at them, and
began to go it again when I lowered my eyes. Occasionally the figures 20
would take shape somewhere about the floor, and then the figures 980
would slide up and overlay them. Then, like the lean kine of Pharaoh's
dream, they would all march away and devour the fat naughts of the
number 1,000. And dancing like gnats in the air were myriads of little
caduceus-like, phantoms, thus--$$$$$. I could not at all make it out,
but began to comprehend my position directly Old Hooker, without moving
from his seat, began to drown the noise of countless feet on the stairs
by elevating his thin falsetto:

"P'r'aps, Mr. Cheerman, it's orl on the squar'. We know Mr. Henly can't