The Complete Short Stories of Mark Twain (Illustrated). Mark Twain
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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 Chair counted.
“Together with those that have been already examined, there are nineteen.”
A storm of derisive applause broke out.
“Perhaps they all contain the secret. I move that you open them all and read every signature that is attached to a note of that sort – and read also the first eight words of the note.”
“Second the motion!”
It was put and carried – uproariously. Then poor old Richards got up, and his wife rose and stood at his side. Her head was bent down, so that none might see that she was crying. Her husband gave her his arm, and so supporting her, he began to speak in a quavering voice:
“My friends, you have known us two – Mary and me – all our lives, and I think you have liked us and respected us—”
The Chair interrupted him:
“Allow me. It is quite true – that which you are saying, Mr. Richards; this town does know you two; it does like you; it does respect you; more – it honors you and loves you—”
Halliday’s voice rang out:
“That’s the hall-marked truth, too! If the Chair is right, let the house speak up and say it. Rise! Now, then – hip! hip! hip! – all together!”
The house rose in mass, faced toward the old couple eagerly, filled the air with a snow-storm of waving handkerchiefs, and delivered the cheers with all its affectionate heart.
The Chair then continued:
“What I was going to say is this: We know your good heart, Mr. Richards, but this is not a time for the exercise of charity toward offenders. [Shouts of ‘Right! right!’] I see your generous purpose in your face, but I cannot allow you to plead for these men—”
“But I was going to—”
“Please take your seat, Mr. Richards. We must examine the rest of these notes – simple fairness to the men who have already been exposed requires this. As soon as that has been done – I give you my word for this – you shall be heard.”
Many voices. “Right! – the Chair is right – no interruption can be permitted at this stage! Go on! – the names! the names! – according to the terms of the motion!”
The old couple sat reluctantly down, and the husband whispered to the wife, “It is pitifully hard to have to wait; the shame will be greater than ever when they find we were only going to plead for ourselves.”
Straightway the jollity broke loose again with the reading of the names.
“‘You are far from being a bad man—’ Signature, ‘Robert J. Titmarsh.’”
“‘You are far from being a bad man—’ Signature, ‘Eliphalet Weeks.’”
“‘You are far from being a bad man—’ Signature, ‘Oscar B. Wilder.’”
At this point the house lit upon the idea of taking the eight words out of the Chairman’s hands. He was not unthankful for that. Thenceforward he held up each note in its turn and waited. The house droned out the eight words in a massed and measured and musical deep volume of sound (with a daringly close resemblance to a well-known church chant) – “You are f-a-r from being a b-a-a-a-d man.” Then the Chair said, “Signature, ‘Archibald Wilcox.’” And so on, and so on, name after name, and everybody had an increasingly and gloriously good time except the wretched Nineteen. Now and then, when a particularly shining name was called, the house made the Chair wait while it chanted the whole of the test-remark from the beginning to the closing words, “And go to hell or Hadleyburg – try and make it the for-or-m-e-r!” and in these special cases they added a grand and agonized and imposing “A-a-a-a-men!”
The list dwindled, dwindled, dwindled, poor old Richards keeping tally of the count, wincing when a name resembling his own was pronounced, and waiting in miserable suspense for the time to come when it would be his humiliating privilege to rise