The town of Hadleyburg had a very good reputation to the entire world talking about how great they are. Hadleyburg was the most honest and upright town in the entire region somehow keeping this tradition from generation to generation. All the neighboring towns were jealous of Hadleyburg but this would all change when a stranger with a terrible goal would turn this town upside down. This man new of the town’s gift bag of goal would do the trick.
The stranger decided that he would turn the town upon itself by making the honest become liars. First off, the stranger brought the back of gold to an old couple and told them that his bag was for the person that had given him $20 one lonely night. He would give 19 members of this town the code on how to get their hands on the gold. Through of series of events he was able to get all of these 19 members to believe that they were the rightful owners of this bag of gold. The reason why these 19 members thought they were the rightful owners of this bag was because they all knew what was said to the man that lonely night. The saying was “You are far from being a bad man: go, and reform.” This saying was the one that would tell the true owner of this bag but there were 19 people who knew of this sentence. This would be later found out at the town meeting when each member would believe that they were the ones who could claim the bag.
Finally at the meeting the owner would be revealed and everyone would know what has happened. When the chair would say name by name and each person would realize what had been done. The most honest region in all the land would have a new name that would be “never mind what—I will not give it away.” There was no longer an honest town until Mr. Richards told his secret and then it was said, “it is an honest town once more, and the man will have to rise early that catches it napping again.”
Through this