“It is another temptation, Edward--I’m all in a tremble--but, oh, we’ve escaped one temptation, and that ought to warn us, to--[“Six did I hear?--thanks!--six fifty, six f--SEVEN hundred!”] And yet, Edward, when you think--nobody susp--[“Eight hundred dollars!--hurrah!--make it nine!--Mr. Parsons, did I hear you say--thanks!--nine!--this noble sack of virgin lead going at only nine hundred dollars, gilding and all--come! do I hear--a thousand!--gratefully yours!--did some one say eleven?--a sack which is going to be the most celebrated in the whole Uni--”] “Oh, Edward” (beginning to sob), “we are so poor!--but--but--do as you think best--do as you think best.” Edward fell--that is, he sat still; sat with a conscience which was not satisfied, but which was overpowered by circumstances. Meantime a stranger, who looked like an amateur detective gotten up as an impossible English earl, had been watching the evening’s proceedings with manifest interest, and with a contented expression in his face; and he had been privately commenting to himself. He was now soliloquising somewhat like this: “None of the Eighteen are bidding; that is not satisfactory; I must change that--the dramatic unities require it; they must buy the sack they tried to steal; they must pay a heavy price, too--some of them are rich. And another thing, when I make a mistake in Hadleyburg nature the man that puts that error upon me is entitled to a high honorarium, and some one must pay. This poor old Richards has brought my judgment to shame; he is an honest man:--I don’t understand it, but I acknowledge it. Yes, he saw my deuces--_and_ with a straight flush, and by rights the pot is his. And it shall be a jack-pot, too, if I can manage it. He disappointed me, but let that pass.” He was watching the bidding. At a thousand, the market broke: the prices tumbled swiftly. He waited--and still watched. One competitor dropped out; then another, and another. He put in a bid or two now. When the bids had sunk to ten dollars, he added a five; some one raised him a three; he waited a moment, then flung in a fifty-dollar jump, and the sack was his--at $1,282. The house broke out in cheers--then stopped; for he was on his feet, and had lifted his hand. He began to speak.