The fact was talked over among
the people in the shops, in the street, in social groups that gathered
at evening; and there was great curiosity to know what he had learned,
and what opinions he had formed. Mr. Belcher knew how to play his cards,
and having set the people talking, he filled out and sent to each of the
wives of the five pastors of the village, as a gift, a certificate of
five shares of the stock of the Continental Petroleum Company. Of
course, they were greatly delighted, and, of course, twenty-four hours
had not passed by when every man, woman and child in Sevenoaks was
acquainted with the transaction. People began to revise their judgments
of the man whom they had so severely condemned. After all, it was the
way in which he had done things in former days, and though they had come
to a vivid apprehension of the fact that he had done them for a purpose,
which invariably terminated in himself, they could not see what there
was to be gained by so munificent a gift. Was he not endeavoring, by
self-sacrifice, to win back a portion of the consideration he had
formerly enjoyed? Was it not a confession of wrong-doing, or wrong
judgment? There were men who shook their heads, and "didn't know about
it;" but the preponderance of feeling was on the side of the proprietor,
who sat in his library and imagined just what was in progress around
him,--nay, calculated upon it, as a chemist calculates the results of
certain combinations in his laboratory.
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