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 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.
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