In a moment Billson was on his feet and shouting:
“It’s a lie! It’s an infamous lie!”
The Chair. “Be seated, sir! Mr. Wilson has the floor.”
Billson’s friends pulled him into his seat and quieted him, and Wilson went on:
“Those are the simple facts. My note was now lying in a different place on the table from where I had left it. I noticed that, but attached no importance to it, thinking a draft had blown it there. That Mr. Billson would read a private paper was a thing which could not occur to me; he was an honorable man, and he would be above that. If you will allow me to say it, I think his extra word ‘very’ stands explained: it is attributable to a defect of memory. I was the only man in the world who could furnish here any detail of the test-mark – by honorable means. I have finished.”
There is nothing in the world like a persuasive speech to fuddle the mental apparatus and upset the convictions and debauch the emotions of an audience not practiced in the tricks and delusions of oratory. Wilson sat down victorious. The house submerged him in tides of approving applause; friends swarmed to him and shook him by the hand and congratulated him, and Billson was shouted down and not allowed to say a word. The Chair hammered and hammered with its gavel, and kept shouting:
“But let us proceed, gentlemen, let us proceed!”
At last there was a measurable degree of quiet, and the hatter said:
“But what is there to proceed with, sir, but to deliver the money?”
Voices. “That’s it! That’s it! Come forward, Wilson!”
The Hatter. “I move three cheers for Mr. Wilson, Symbol of the special virtue which—”
The cheers burst forth before he could finish; and in the midst of them – and in the midst of the clamor of the gavel also – some enthusiasts mounted Wilson on a big friend’s shoulder and were going to fetch him in triumph to the platform. The Chair’s voice now rose above the noise:
“Order! To your places! You forget that there is still a document to be read.” When quiet had been restored he took up the document, and was going to read it, but laid it down again saying “I forgot; this is not to be read until all written communications received by me have first been read.” He took an envelope out of his pocket, removed its enclosure, glanced at it – seemed astonished – held it out and gazed at it – stared at it.
Twenty or thirty voices cried out:
“What is it? Read it! read it!”
And he did – slowly, and wondering:
“‘The remark which I made to the stranger – [Voices. “Hello! how’s this?”] – was this: “You are far from being a bad man. [Voices. “Great Scott!”] Go, and reform.”’ [Voice. “Oh, saw my leg off!”] Signed by Mr. Pinkerton the banker.”
The pandemonium of delight which turned itself loose now was of a sort to make the judicious weep. Those whose withers were unwrung laughed till the tears ran down; the reporters, in throes of laughter, set down disordered pot-hooks which would never in the world be decipherable; and a sleeping dog jumped up scared out of its wits, and barked itself crazy at the turmoil. All manner of cries were scattered through the din: “We’re getting rich – Two Symbols of Incorruptibility! – without counting Billson!” “Three! – count Shadbelly in – we can’t have too many!” “All right – Billson’s elected!” “Alas, poor Wilson! victim of two thieves!”
A Powerful Voice. “Silence! The Chair’s fished up something more out of its pocket.”
Voices. “Hurrah! Is it something fresh? Read it! read! read!”
The Chair reading. “‘The remark which I made,’ etc. ‘You are far from being a bad man. Go,’ etc. Signed, ‘Gregory Yates.’”
Tornado of Voices. “Four Symbols!” “’Rah for Yates!” “Fish again!”
The house was in a roaring humor now, and ready to get all the fun out of the occasion that might be in it. Several Nineteeners, looking pale and distressed, got up and began to work their way towards the aisles, but a score of shouts went up:
“The doors, the doors – close the doors; no Incorruptible shall leave this place! Sit down, everybody!” The mandate was obeyed.
“Fish again! Read! read!”
The Chair fished again, and once more the familiar words began to fall from its lips – “‘You are far from being a bad man—’”
“Name! name! What’s his name?”
“‘L. Ingoldsby Sargent.’”
“Five elected! Pile up the Symbols! Go on, go on!”
“‘You are far from being a bad—’”
“Name! name!”
“‘Nicholas Whitworth.’”
“Hooray! hooray! it’s a symbolical day!”
Somebody wailed in, and began to sing this rhyme (leaving out “it’s”) to the lovely “Mikado” tune of “When a man’s afraid of a beautiful maid”; the audience joined in, with joy; then, just in time, somebody contributed another line—
And don’t you this forget—
The house roared it out. A third line was at once furnished—
Corruptibles far from Hadleyburg are—
The house roared that one too. As the last note died, Jack Halliday’s voice rose high and clear, freighted with a final line—
But the Symbols are here, you bet!
That was sung, with booming enthusiasm. Then the happy house started in at the beginning and sang the four lines through twice, with immense swing and dash, and finished up with a crashing three-times-three and a tiger for “Hadleyburg the Incorruptible and all Symbols of it which we shall find worthy to receive the hall-mark tonight.”
Then the shoutings at the Chair began again, all over the place:
“Go on! go on! Read! read some more! Read all you’ve got!”
“That’s it – go on! We are winning eternal celebrity!”
A dozen men got up now and began to protest. They said that this farce was the work of some abandoned joker, and was an insult to the whole community. Without a doubt these signatures were all forgeries—
“Sit down! sit down! Shut up! You are confessing. We’ll find your names in the lot.”
“Mr. Chairman, how many of those envelopes have you got?”
The