The whole city
was anxious to know where they were. Some reported that they had
perished in the woods; others that they had been burned in a prairie,
which not a few believed; while another class averred that the
locksmith, driven to desperation, had first destroyed his family, and
then himself. All these stories of course created as much excitement
as the robbery of the bank had done before, only that this time the
tide set the other way; and when the poor locksmith and his family,
who had been driven like vagabonds from the city, approached its
suburbs, they were met, congratulated, and followed by thousands: in
fact, theirs was almost a triumphal entry. And as the public always
like to have a victim, Sparks was advised on all hands to bring an
action against the directors of the bank: large damages would, they
knew, be given, and the banker deserved to suffer for the causeless
ruin brought on a poor but industrious family.
Sparks was reluctant to engage in any such proceeding.
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