‘“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 agonised 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 with Mary and finish his plea, which he was intending to word thus: “... for until now we have never done any wrong thing, but have gone our humble way unreproached. We are very poor, we are old, and, have no chick nor child to help us; we were sorely tempted, and we fell. It was my purpose when I got up before to make confession and beg that my name might not be read out in this public place, for it seemed to us that we could not bear it; but I was prevented. It was just; it was our place to suffer with the rest. It has been hard for us. It is the first time we have ever heard our name fall from any one’s lips—sullied. Be merciful—for the sake or the better days; make our shame as light to bear as in your charity you can.” At this point in his reverie Mary nudged him, perceiving that his mind was absent. The house was chanting, “You are f-a-r,” etc.
“Be ready,” Mary whispered. “Your name comes now; he has read eighteen.”
The chant ended.
“Next! next! next!” came volleying from all over the house.
Burgess put his hand into his pocket. The old couple, trembling, began to rise. Burgess fumbled a moment, then said:
“I find I have read them all.”
Faint with joy and surprise, the couple sank into their seats, and Mary whispered: