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When Egypt Went Broke: A Novel

by Holman Day · English · Gutenberg #4733 · 472,718 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: When Egypt Went Broke: A Novel

Author: Holman Day


        
Release date: April 13, 2006 [eBook #4733]
                Most recently updated: March 8, 2018

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4733

Credits: Produced by Dagny; John Bickers; David Widger


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE: A NOVEL ***




Produced by Dagny; John Bickers





WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE

A NOVEL


By Holman Day




WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE



CHAPTER I

T. BRITT STARTS TO COLLECT

Tasper Britt arose in the gray dawn, as usual.

Some fishermen, seeking bait, stay up late and “jack” angleworms with
a bull's-eye light. The big worms are abroad on the soil under cover
of the darkness. Other fishermen get up early and dig while the dew is
holding the smaller worms near the surface of the ground; in going after
worms the shrewd operator makes the job easy for himself.

Tasper Britt--“Twelve-per-cent Britt”--trimmed his slumber at both
ends--was owl and early bird, both, in his pursuit of the pence of the
people, and got 'em coming and going.

He was the money boss for the town of Egypt, and those who did not give
him his per cent nickname called him “Phay-ray-oh”--but behind his back,
of course. To his face his debt slaves bespoke his favor obsequiously.
Seeing that nearly every “Egyptian” with collateral owed him money, Mr.
Britt had no fault to find with his apparent popularity. He did believe,
complacently, that he was popular. A man who was less sure of himself
would not have dared to appear out, all at once, with his beard dyed
purple-black and with a scratch wig to match. Men gasped when they came
into his office in Britt Block, but men held their faces measurably
under control even though their diaphragms fluttered; the need of
renewing a note--paying a bonus for the privilege--helped supplicants
to hold in any bubbling hilarity. Therefore, Mr. Britt continued to be
assured that he was pretty generally all right, so far as the folks of
Egypt were concerned.

Mr. Britt dyed after Hittie died. That was when he was past sixty-five.

It was only the familiar, oft-repeated instance of temperament being
jounced out of a lifelong rut by a break in wedlock relations.

Hittie was his yoke-mate, pulling hard at his side with wages of food
and drink. The two of them kept plodding steadily in the dry and rocky
road all the years, never lifting their eyes to look over into pastures
forbidden. Perhaps if Hittie had been left with the money, after the
yoke had been sundered, she would have kicked up her heels in a few
final capers of consolation, in order to prove to herself, by brief
experience, how much better consistent sainthood was as a settled state.

In view of such a possibility--and widows are not altogether different
from widowers--it was hardly fair in the folks of Egypt to twist every
act of Widower Britt to his discredit and to make him out a renegade of
a relict. He did go through all the accepted motions as a mourner. He
took on “something dreadful” at the funeral. He placed in the cemetery
lot a granite statue of himself, in a frock coat of stone and holding a
stone plug hat in the hook of the elbow. That statue cost Tasper Britt
rising sixteen hundred dollars--and after he dyed his beard and bought
the top piece of hair, the satirists of Egypt were unkind enough to say
that he had set his stone image out in the graveyard to scare Hittie if
she tried to arise and spy on his new carryings-on.

Mr. Britt had continued to be a consistent mourner, according to the
old-fashioned conventions.

When he arose in the dawn of the day with which the tale begins and
unwound a towel from his jowls--for the new Magnetic Hair Restorer had
an ambitious way of touching up the pillow-slip with color--he beheld
a memento, composed of assembled objects, “sacred to the memory of
Mehitable.” In a frame, under glass, on black velvet were these items:
silver plate from casket, hair switch, tumbler and spoon with which
the last medicine had been administered, wedding ring and marriage
certificate; photograph in center. The satirists had their comment for
that memento--they averred that it was not complete without the two dish
towels to which Hittie had been limited.

Mr. Britt inspected the memento and sighed; that was before he had
touched up his beard with a patent dye comb.

After he had set the scratch wig on his glossy poll and had studied
himself in the mirror he looked more cheerful and pulled a snapshot
photograph from a bureau drawer, gazed on it and sighed again. It was
the picture of a girl, a full-length view of a mighty pretty girl whose
smiling face was backed by an open sunshade. She was in white garb and
wore no hat.

“Vona,” said Mr. Britt, talking out as if the sound of his voice
fortified his faith, “you're going to see this thing in the right way,
give you time. I'm starting late--but I'm blasted wide awake from now
on. I have gone after money, but money ain't everything. I reckon that
by to-night I can show you honors that you'll share with me--they've
been waiting for me, and now I'll reach out and take 'em for your sake.
Hittie didn't know what to do with money--honors would have bothered
her. But with a girl like you I can grab in and relish living for the
rest of this life.”

Then Mr. Britt went over to the tavern to get his breakfast.

By eating his three meals per day at the tavern he was indulging his new
sense of liberty. He and Hittie always used to eat in the kitchen--meals
on the dot, as to time. The tavern was little and dingy, and Egypt was
off the railroad line, and there were few patrons, and old Files cut his
steak very close to the critter's horn. But after the years of routine
at a home table there was a sort of clubman, devil-may-care suggestion
about this new regime at the tavern; and after his meals Britt sat in
the tavern office and smoked a cigar. Furthermore, he held a mortgage
on the tavern and Files was behind on the interest and was eagerly and
humbly glad to pay his creditor with food. In order to impress a peddler
or other transient guest the creditor was in the habit of calling in
Files and ordering him to recook portions.

In his new sense of expansion as a magnate, Tasper Britt took his time
about eating and allowed men with whom he had dealings to come into the
dining room and sit down opposite and state their cases.

That morning Ossian Orne came in and sat at the table without asking for
permission to be admitted to such intimacy. He came with the air of a
man who was keeping an appointment, and Mr. Britt's manner of greeting
Orne showed that this was so.

Mr. Orne did not remove the earlapper cap which the nippy February day
demanded; nor did he shuck off the buffalo coat whose baldness in the
rear below the waistline suggested the sedentary habits of Mr. Orne.
He selected a doughnut from the plate at Britt's elbow and munched
placidly.

Landlord Files, who was bringing ham and eggs to a commercial drummer,
was amazed by this familiarity and stopped and showed that amazement. He
was more astonished by what he overheard. Mr. Orne was saying, “As your
manager, Britt--”

Mr. Britt scowled at Mr. Files, and the latter slap-slupped on his
slippered way; it was certainly news that Britt had taken on a manager.
Such a personage must be permitted to be familiar. When Mr. Files looked
again, Mr. Orne was eating a second doughnut. He was laying down the law
to a nodding and assenting Mr. Britt on some point, and then he took a
third doughnut and rose to his feet.

“I'll be back to-night, with full details and further instructions to
you, Britt,” declared Mr. Orne, who was known in the county political
circles as “Sniffer” Orne. He combined politics with nursery-stock
canvassing and had a way of his own in getting under the skins of men
when he went in search of information. “If I ain't back to-night I'll
report to-morrow. I may have to take a run over into Norway, Vienna, and
Peru to make sure of how things stand generally.”

He trudged out, stooping forward and waddling with the gait of a parrot
ambling along on a pole; his projecting coat tail and his thin beak
gave him a sort of avian look. The commercial drummer, overhearing his
projected itinerary, glanced out of the window as if he expected to
see Mr. Orne spread wings and fly. But Mr. Orne tucked himself into a
high-backed sleigh and went jangling off along Egypt's single street.

The stranger, inquiring of Mr. Files, learned that Mr. Orne was not as
much of a globe-trotter as he sounded.

“It's only the way the Old Sirs named the towns in the ranges about here
when the land was took up. In this range we have Egypt and them other
towns you heard him speak of. In the next range below are Jerusalem and
Damascus and Levant and Purgatory Mills. If them unorganized townships
to the north of us are ever took up and made towns of, it would be just
like some whifflehead to name 'em Heaven, Hell, Hooray, and Hackmetack.
But the name of Egypt fits this town all right,” stated Mr. Files,
disconsolately, and in his perturbation raising his voice.

“Files, don't run down your home town,” rasped Mr. Britt.

“What has been run down as far's it can be run can't be run no farther,”
 said the landlord. “And I 'ain't said why the name Egypt fits the town,
for that matter.” Britt's ugly stare was taking the spirit out of the
landlord's rebelliousness.

“Suppose you do say!” counseled Mr. Britt, menace in his tones. “I've
got a new and special reason, right now, why I demand that every citizen
must uphold the good name of our town--especially a citizen in your
position, first to meet all arriving strangers. Why does the name fit
this town?” He banged the handle of his knife on the table.

Mr. Britt had reason for the heat which he was displaying and which
caused the stranger to open his eyes more widely. Mr. Britt was fully
aware that men called him “Phay-ray-oh” and that his statue in the
cemetery was called “The Sphinx.” He knew that since the town had
gone on the down grade through debt and the decay of industries the
inhabitants had begun to call themselves “The Children of Israel,”
 and to say they were trying to make bricks without straw. In fact, an
itinerant evangelist who called himself “The Light of the World” had
come to town and was trying to exhort the inhabitants into rebellion
against conditions, and in his crack-brained hysteria was having some
success in exciting “The Children” to protest against the domination by
Tasper Britt.

Mr. Files was not as handy with his tongue as he was with the mallet
with which he pounded steak. He struggled with an inept reply about
an old town having a dignified old name. He stuttered and stopped when
Britt came and stood in front of him, chewing savagely on a toothpick.

“Files, I wasn't intending to make a formal announcement till my
political manager, Ossian Orne, gets back with reports from the field.
Not but what I expect that when it is known that I'm willing to accept
political honor it will be given to me. But when I sit in the next
legislature of this state as Representative Britt of Egypt, I propose to
represent a town that ain't slurred at home or abroad. Hereafter, mind
your tongue and advise others to do the same.”

He stamped out. Landlord Files was left standing with an open mouth from
which no speech issued.

“Emperor, or only a plain king?” inquired the bagman.

“You being a stranger, I can let out some of my feelings,” returned Mr.
Files. “Emperor, you say? He might just as well try to be one as to run
for the legislature.”

The drummer showed interest.

“That's what getting to be a widderer can do to some men,” confided the
landlord. He placed a smutty hand on the table and leaned down. “That
legislature thing ain't the half of it, mister! He hasn't blacked his
whiskers and bought that false mane simply so as to get into politics.
He's trying to court the prettiest girl in this town.”

“Aha!” said the drummer. “The old story! Cleopatra, queen of Egypt, is
doing the job over again with the local Mark Antony!”

“Mebbe,” admitted Mr. Files, his fishy gaze revealing that he had no
personal knowledge of the parties mentioned. “It's the old story, all
right. Widdereritis, and a bad run of it.”

The bagman had a scarfpin in the shape of a horse shoe. His comment was
in line with his taste in adornment. “Files, old scout, if a colt is put
to harness so early that he can't get his natural fling in the fields,
he'll have it at the other end of his life, when he's let run to
pasture, spavin or no spavin. Why don't Egypt hold off and let Uncle
What's-his-name enjoy his new hair and hopes?”

“He has known how to collect in the money that's due him,” stated
Mr. Files, “compound interest and all! He was only getting back his
investments. But he has never put out any of the kind of capital that
earns liking or respect or love. He has woke up to what he has been
missing. He's trying to collect what he has never invested. And he can't
do it, mister! No, sir, he can't!”

The drummer was a young man. He asked a natural question. “Isn't the
girl willing to be an old man's darling?”

“You might go over to Britt's bank and ask her,” suggested Mr. Files,
crisply. “She's bookkeeper there. But you'd better not let that young
fellow that's cashier overhear you.”

“So that's it? Say, events in Egypt in the near future may make some of
the mummies here sit up and take notice!”

“Shouldn't wonder a mite,” agreed Mr. Files, beginning to gather up the
dishes.



CHAPTER II

FIRST COLLECTIONS

That morning Mr. Britt did not dawdle in the hotel office with his
cigar. He knew perfectly well that he merely had been making a pretense
of enjoying that sybaritism, putting on his new clubman airs along with
his dye and his toupee.

Among other curios in the office was a dusty, stuffed alligator, hanging
from the ceiling over the desk. The jaws were widely agape and Mr.
Britt always felt an inclination to yawn when he looked alligatorward.
Therefore, the alligator offended Mr. Britt by suggesting drowsiness
in the morning; Mr. Britt, up early, and strictly after any worm that
showed itself along the financial path, resented the feeling of daytime
sleepiness as heresy. Furthermore, that morning the gaping alligator
also suggested the countenance of the open-mouthed Files whom Britt
had just left in the dining room, and Files had been irritating. Britt
scowled at the alligator, lighted a cigar, and hustled outdoors; he had
the feeling that the day was to be an important one in his affairs.

Egypt's Pharaoh was able to view considerable of the town from the
tavern porch. The tavern was an old stage-coach house and was boosted
high on a hill, according to the pioneer plan of location. The houses of
the little village straggled down the hill.

The aspect was not uninviting, seen under the charitable cloak of
February's snow, sun-touched by the freshly risen luminary, the white
expanses glinting; all the rocks and ledges and the barren shapes were
covered. But under summer's frank sunlight Egypt was as disheartening a
spectacle as a racked old horse, ribs and hip bones outthrust, waiting
for the knacker's offices.

There were men in Egypt--men whose reverses had put them in a
particularly ugly mood--who said out loud in places where Britt could
not hear them that the money-grabber could not get much more than
twelve-per-cent blood out of the nag he had ridden for so long, and
might as well set knife to neck and put the town out of its misery.

Right behind Britt, as he stood on the porch, was a sheaf of yellowed
papers nailed to the side of the tavern. Nobody in Egypt bothered to
look at the papers; all the taxpayers knew what they were; the papers
were signed by the high sheriff of the county and represented that all
the real estate of Egypt had been sold over and over for taxes and had
been bid in by the town as a municipality--and there the matter rested.
Egypt, in other words, had been trying to lift itself by the bootstraps
and was not merely still standing on the ground, but was considerably
sunk in the hole that had been dug by the boot heels while Egypt was
jumping up and down. Mr. Britt was not troubled by the sight of the
yellowed papers; he owned mortgages and pulled in profit by the legal
curiosities known as “Holmes notes”--leeches of particular drawing
power. Mr. Britt did not own real estate. Egypt, in its financial stress
and snarl of litigation, was a wonderful operating field for a man with
loose money and a tight nature.

From far swamps the whack of axes sounded. Mr. Britt knew that men were
cutting hoop poles and timber for shooks; Egypt earned ready money
with which to pay interest, getting out shooks and hoop poles. That
occupation had been the resource of the pioneers, and the descendants
stuck to the work, knowing how to do it better than anything else. There
was not enough soil for farming on a real money-making scale. The old
sheep, so cynics said, were trained to hold the lambs by their tails and
lower them head downward among the rocks to graze. Poor men usually
own dogs. But dogs would not live long in Egypt, the cynics went on to
assert; the dogs ran themselves to death hustling over the town line to
find dirt enough to bury a bone.

Mr. Britt could see his statue in the cemetery.

Down the street was a one-story brick building, the only brick structure
in the town. Set into the front of this building was a replica of the
statue in the cemetery. Britt had secured special rates by ordering two
statues from the stonecutter. Britt possessed vanity. He had hidden it,
begrudging the cost of gratifying it. The crust of his nature, hardening
through the years, had pressed upon that vanity. The statues, his
refurbished beard, and his rehaired head had relieved the pressure
somewhat, but the vanity was still sore. In his new mood he was dreading
a blow on that sore spot. He realized what kind of a grudge he was
carrying around. A vague sense of an unjust deal in life is more
dangerous to the possessor than an acute and concrete knowledge of
specific injury. The vagueness causes it to be correlated to insanity.
Britt, putting his belated aspirations to the test, hoped that nobody
would presume to hit on that sore spot. He knew that such an adventure
might be dangerous for the person or persons who went up against him.

He buttoned his overcoat, settled the cigar rigidly into one corner of
his mouth, stared with approval at the stone image of himself in the
facade of Britt Block, and walked to the edge of the porch.

Across the street sat a little building above the door of which was a
sign inscribed, “Usial Britt, Shoemaker.” That it was a dwelling as well
as a shop was indicated when a bare and hairy arm was thrust from a side
window and the refuse in a smoking iron spider was dumped upon the
snow. Simultaneously it was shown that more than one person tenanted the
building: a man, bareheaded, but with a shaggy mat of roached hair that
served in lieu of a hat, issued from the door. The wanton luxuriance of
the hair would have stirred envy in any baldheaded man; but Tasper Britt
exhibited a passion that was more virulent than envy.

The man who came forth was “Prophet Elias.” It was the newcomer, the
religious fanatic, the exhorter against oppression of the people by
usury, the fearless declaimer who named Tasper Britt in diatribe and was
setting the folks by the ears.

The Prophet's morning greeting did not make for amity. He stood straight
and pointed in turn to the visible statues and then to Tasper Britt, in
person. “Baal, and the images of Baal!” he shouted. “Stone, all three!”

Then he stepped from the door and spread a prodigiously big umbrella--an
umbrella striped in dingy colors and of the size of the canopies seen
over the drivers of delivery wagons. The employment of such a shield
from the sun in midwinter indicated that the Prophet was rather more
than eccentric; his garb conveyed the same suggestion. He wore a frayed
purple robe that hung on his heels when he came striding across the
street. On a broad band of cloth that once had been white, reaching from
shoulder to waist, diagonally across his breast, were the words, “The
Light of the World.”

Tasper Britt surveyed him with venomous gaze as he advanced. But Britt
shifted his stare and put additional venom into the look he gave a
man who came to the door and stood there, leaning against the jamb and
surveying the scene with a satisfied grin. There was no need of the name
“Britt” above his head to proclaim his kinship with the man who stood on
the tavern porch. The beard of the Britt in the door was gray, and his
head was bald. But he was Tasper Britt, in looks, as Britt unadorned
ought to have been. There was something like subtle reproach in his
sticking to nature as nature had ordained. And the folks of Egypt had
been having much to say about Usial Britt putting this new touch of
malice into the long-enduring feud between twin brothers--even though
he merely went on as he had been going, bald and gray. But because Usial
had taken to going about in public places wherever Tasper appeared, and
unobtrusively got as near his brother as possible on those occasions,
and winked and pointed to himself and suggested “Before using!” the
malice was apparent.

Usial, in the door, stroked his smooth poll complacently and grinned.

Tasper, on the porch, shook his fist.

Prophet Elias marched close to the porch and struck an attitude. “Hear
ye! Hath not Job said, 'The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the
joy of the hypocrite but for a moment'?”

A man who was humped over a sawbuck in a nearby yard straightened up
and began to pay strict attention. A driver halted a sled loaded with
unshaved hoop poles, and listened. The commercial drummer came out on
the porch.

“Look here, you crazy coot, haven't I given you fair warning about
tongue-whaling me in public?” demanded the man who was pilloried.

“'Behold, all they that are incensed against thee shall be ashamed and
confounded,'” quoted the Prophet, pounding his fist against the lettered
breast. “'They shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall
perish.'”

Mr. Britt leaped off the porch, thrust the Prophet from his path, and
strode across the street toward the man in the door. The brother did
not lose his smile. He maintained his placid demeanor even when an angry
finger slashed through the air close under his nose.

“I never intended to pass speech with you again, you renegade,” stormed
Tasper. “But I'm talking to-day for a town that I propose to represent
in the legislature, and I won't have it shamed any longer by a lunatic
that you're harboring.”

Usial Britt lifted his eyebrows. “The legislature?” He puckered his lips
and whistled a few bars of “Hail to the Chief.”

Candidate Britt waggled the monitory finger more energetically. “You are
sheltering and ste'boying on a crazy man who is making the rest of the
people in this town crazy. If they hadn't grown loony they'd ride him
out over the line on a rail.”

The Prophet had arrived at Britt's shoulder. “'But God has chose the
foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.'”

“I don't guarantee my guest's brains,” said the Britt in the door, “but
I do vouch for the correctness of his memory when it comes to the matter
of Gospel quotations. And a cracked record doesn't always spoil a good
tune.”

“I'll have him in the lockup as a tramp, or on the poor farm as a
lunatic.”

“You mean, that's where you would have him if the shelter of my roof
didn't give him legal protection,” returned Usial, calm in the face of
wrath.

“'I was a stranger, and ye took me in,'” declaimed the Prophet.

“And I'm keeping you on,” stated the cynical Usial, speaking for his
brother's benefit, “because you're a self-operating, red-hot gad that
is helping me torment yon pirate with texts after I had run out of cuss
words. Go ahead, Prophet! Shoot anything. It's a poor text that will not
hit him some place.”

Obediently, the fanatic began to mouth Holy Writ in orotund. Tasper
Britt raised his fist. But the devil himself shrinks before The Word.
Britt did not strike. His face revealed his emotions; he could not bring
himself to assault this fountain of sacred aphorisms.

He turned and marched away down the middle of the road, stamping hard
into the snow.

One of the listeners was a man who came bearing a pair of shoes. Usial
Britt took them from the man's hand. “You can have 'em to-morrow night.”

“But there's only a little patch needed--”

“To-morrow night, I said. I've got other business for to-day.” He went
into the house and slammed the door.

The Prophet set his umbrella over his head and went away on the trail of
Egypt's Pharaoh.



CHAPTER III

MORE COLLECTIONS

There was a door in the middle of the facade of the low brick building;
there were two windows on either side of the door. On the left-hand
windows was painted in black letters, “Egypt Trust Company.” On the
right-hand windows was painted, “T. Britt.” There was no legend to
indicate what the business of T. Britt might be. None was required. The
mere name carried full information for all Egypt.

Mr. Britt glanced in at the left-hand windows as he approached the door.
Cashier Frank Vaniman was sweeping out.

When President Britt of the new Egypt Trust company went down to
a business college in the city in search of a cashier, he quizzed
candidates in quest of what he termed “foolish notions.” Young Mr.
Vaniman, who had supported himself ever since he was fourteen years old,
and had done about everything in the ten years since then in the way of
work, grabbing weeks or months for his schooling when he had a bit of
money ahead, passed the test very well, according to Mr. Britt's notion.
Young Mr. Vaniman had secured a business education piecemeal, and was a
bit late in getting it, but Mr. Britt promptly perceived that the young
man had not been hung up by stupidity or sloth. So he hired Vaniman,
finding him a strapping chap without foolish notions.

Vaniman was cashier, receiving teller, paying teller, swept out, tended
the furnace, and kept the books of the bank until Britt hired Vona
Harnden for that job. Vona had been teaching school to help out her
folks, in the prevailing Egyptian famine in finance.

But folks stopped paying taxes, and the town orders by the school
committee on the treasurer were not honored; therefore, Vona gratefully
took a place in the bank when Mr. Britt called her into his office one
day and offered the job to her. He said that the work was getting to
be too much for Frank. That consideration for hired help impressed Miss
Harnden and she smiled very sweetly indeed, and Mr. Britt beamed back at
her in a fashion that entirely disarranged for the rest of the day
the set look that he creased into his features before his mirror every
morning. Several clients took advantage of his blandness and renewed
notes without paying the premium that Britt exacted when he loaned his
own money as a private venture.

President Britt entered the door, but he did not go into the bank at
once. He marched along the corridor and unlocked his office and toasted
himself over the furnace register while he finished his cigar; Vaniman
was a good fireman and was always down early. Mr. Britt kept his ear
cocked; he knew well the tap of certain brisk boot heels that sounded in
the corridor every morning and he timed his movements accordingly.

By being on the alert for sounds, he heard what did not comport with the
comfort of his office. Prophet Elias was engaged in his regular
morning tour of duty, picketing T. Britt's domains, giving an hour to
deliverance of taunting texts before going abroad through the town on
his mission to the people with texts of comfort; the Prophet carried
plenty of penetrating, textual ammunition, but he carried poultices for
the spirit as well.

Mr. Britt heard: “'Will he esteem thy riches? No, not gold, nor all the
forces of strength.'”

The usurer commented under his breath with remarks that were not
scriptured. He threw away his cigar and went to a case where he kept
some law books which contained the statutes that were concerned
with money and debts and dependence; he had been hunting through the
legislative acts regarding vagrants and paupers and had been hoping
to light on some legal twist that would serve him. The Prophet kept on
proclaiming. But all at once he shifted from taunts about riches. His
voice was mellow with sincere feeling.

Said the Prophet: “'Behold, thou art fair, my love; thou hast doves'
eyes within thy locks. Thy teeth are like a flock of sheep which came up
from the washing. Thy lips are like a thread of scarlet, and thy speech
is comely. Thou art all fair, my love; there is no spot in thee.'”

Mr. Britt did not wait in his office for the completion of the
panegyric. He knew well enough what arriving personage it heralded. He
hurried out into the corridor and faced the radiant girl who came in
from the sunshine. Even one who might question the Prophet's tact would
not have blamed his enthusiasm.

“Vona, you swear out a warrant and I'll have him arrested,” stammered
the employer.

She checked a chirrup of laughter and her smile faded when she opened
her eyes on Britt's sourness.

“There's a law about hectoring and insulting a female person on the
street--some kind of a law--and we'll invoke it in this case,” Britt
insisted.

“Why, Mr. Britt, he's only a harmless old man with extremely poor
judgment about most things, including a girl's looks,” she protested.

“Don't you call that gabble an insult to you, walking along and minding
your own business?” His heat was alarming; he shook his fist to indicate
the Prophet.

She was unable to restrain her demure smile. “The specifications, sir,
are overflattering; but I'm sure I don't feel insulted.”

In the past Britt had purred paternally in her presence and had stared
at her in a way that often disconcerted her. Now his expression alarmed
her. His face grew red. At first she thought he was embarrassed by
the reflection that he had been terming the Prophet's compliments an
insult--intimating that she had no claim to such compliments. But Mr.
Britt did not bother to deal with that phase of the matter. The flame
was shifted from his face to his eyes; his cheeks grew pale. He tried
to put his arm about her. She set her gloved hands against the arm and
pushed it away, fright popping her eyelids wide apart.

“I want to protect you,” Britt stuttered. “I don't want any harm or
trouble to come to you.”

He stepped back and gazed at her imploringly. His abashed obedience, his
promptness in desisting, restored her self-possession immediately. She
had the air of one who had misunderstood friendly interest. “Oh, Mr.
Britt, I know you have a kind heart underneath your--I mean that folks
don't realize how good you are unless they are near to you, as Frank
and I are. We often speak of it.” She hurried on. She opened the door
admitting to the bank from the corridor and cheerily called her “Good
morning!” to the cashier as she crossed the threshold.

Mr. Britt stood in his tracks in the corridor after she closed the door.
He stared at the floor with eyes that saw nothing. He slowly raised
his hand and set his right index finger upon the toupee and scratched
meditatively through the mesh--scratched carefully, having accustomed
himself to handling his boughten hair with cautious touch. He had not
liked her intonation when she said “Frank and I.” He muttered something
about his feelings. He had never thought of Frank as belonging in Vona's
calculations. He had never considered even the linking of their names,
much less their interests.

But Mr. Britt, having made money his idol, could not understand worship
directed to any other shrine. His face cleared while he pondered. A girl
who frankly declared at all times that she would do 'most anything to
help her family out of their troubles was not of a mind to hitch up with
another pauper--a combination of choreman and cashier--even though
she had linked their names casually in speech. And Mr. Britt mouthed
mumblingly some of the sentiments he had put into words that morning
when he arose. He smoothed down the top piece and looked more at ease.
He smiled when he reflected on what he would have to say to her after
Emissary Orne had returned with something in the line of fruits from
the Promised Land. His self-assurance revived; nevertheless, he tiptoed
along the corridor and listened at the door of the bank.

The reassuring swish of a broom and their casual chatter--he heard only
those commonplace sounds!

She was asking Vaniman if he had mislaid her dustcloth.

Vaniman replied in a tone which indicated that the two were at some
distance from each other. There was no subdued conference--no murmuring
of mushiness such as a meeting in the morning might be expected to
elicit in case there was any sort of an understanding between them. Mr.
Britt tiptoed away from the door and braced back his shoulders and gave
himself a shake of satisfied confidence, and went serenely into his
office, plucking a cigar from his vest pocket. By permitting himself to
smoke again he was breaking the habit of confining himself to one cigar
after breakfast. But many men in moments of exaltation seek tobacco or
alcohol.

Mr. Britt felt that he had broken the ice, at any rate. Mr. Britt
decided that the girl was heart-free and entertained sensible ideas
about the main chance--and she had had a good word to say about Britt's
kind heart. Mr. Britt was sure that Frank Vaniman knew his place and was
keeping it. Therefore, Mr. Britt lighted a fresh cigar and blew visible
smoke rings and inflated invisible mental bubbles and did not pay any
more attention to what Prophet Elias was saying outside. And as if the
Prophet had received a psychological hint that his text shafts were no
longer penetrating the money king's tough hide, the diminuendo of his
orotund marked the progress of his departure.

Usually Mr. Britt went across into the bank and hung around after the
girl arrived. On this morning he stayed in his office. According to his
notion, his advances to her in the corridor, though he had not intended
to be so precipitate in the matter, had given her something to think
about--and he decided to keep away and let her think. If she saw him
following the usual routine, her thoughts might drop back into routine
channels.

He thrilled at the memory of her touch on his arm, even though the touch
had been a thrusting of her hands in self-defense and her eyes had been
big with fright.

He sat down at his desk and tore the leaf off his pad calendar, starting
his business day as usual. He looked at the disclosed date and his eyes
became humid. It was February 14th, the day of St. Valentine. An idea
came to Mr. Britt. He had been wondering how to approach the question
with Vona without blurting the thing and making a mess of it. He
determined to do something that he had not attempted since he had beaued
Hittie; he set himself to compose a few verses for a valentine--verses
that would pave the way for a formal declaration of his love and his
hopes.

The determination indicated that Mr. Britt was having a severe run of
a second attack of the same malady, and he acknowledged that much to
himself as he sat there and chewed the soggy end of an extinguished
cigar and gazed aloft raptly, seeking rhymes.

He made slow progress; his pen trailed as sluggishly as a tracking
snail--a word at a time. He lost all notion of how the hours were
slipping past.

A man walked in. He was Stickney, a cattle buyer, and a minor
stockholder in the bank. Mr. Britt, his eyes filmy with prolonged
abstraction, hooked his chin over his shoulder and scowled on the
intruder; a man bringing business into that office that day was an
intruder, according to Mr. Britt's opinion.

Stickney walked close to the desk and displayed a flash of curiosity
when Britt laid his forearm over his writing.

“Spring pome, or only a novel?” queried Stickney, genially, figuring
that such a question was the height of humor when put to a man of Tasper
Britt's flinty, practical nature.

Mr. Britt, like a person touched smartly by a brad, twitched himself in
his chair and asked in chilly tone what he could do for Stickney. The
caller promptly became considerable of an icicle himself. He laid down a
little sheaf of papers beside the shielding forearm.

“If you'll O. K. them notes for discount, I'll be much obliged, and
won't take up valuable time.”

“We're tightening up on discounts--calling in many loans, too,” stated
President Britt, with financial frigidity.

“I know all about your calling loans, Mr. Britt. Much obliged. It makes
a crackerjack market for me in the cattle business. They've got to raise
money, and I'm setting my own prices.” Stickney thawed and beamed
on Britt with a show of fraternal spirit, as if the banker were a
co-conspirator in the job of shaking down the public. “However, my notes
there are all good butchers' paper--sound as a pennyroyal hymn! I've got
to have the cash so as to steal more cattle while the market is as it
is.”

Britt pushed away the notes and seized the opportunity to turn his own
papers upside down on the desk. “We can't accommodate you at present,
Stickney.”

The customer stepped back and propped his palms on his hips. “I reckon
I've got to call for an explanation.”

“We're not in the habit of explaining the details of our business to
individuals.”

Stickney slipped the leash on his indignation. “'We,' say you? All
right! 'We' it is. I'm in on that 'we.' I'm a stockholder in the bank.
What sort of investments are 'we' making that have caused money to be
so tight here that a regular customer is turned down--and after enough
loans have been called to make the vault bulge?”

“The report will show,” returned Britt, coldly. “I am not called on
to issue that report in installments every time a stockholder turns in
here.”

The especial stockholder stepped forward and tapped his finger on the
desk. “I don't say that you are. But now that this subject is opened
up--”

“The subject is closed, Stickney.”

“Now that the subject is opened up,” insisted the other man, “I'll make
mention of what you probably know--that I have regular business 'most
every day down in Levant at the railroad terminus. And I'm knowing to it
that regular shipments of specie have been coming to the bank. If that
specie is in our vaults it ain't sweating off more gold and silver, is
it, or drawing interest? I know you're a shrewd operator, Britt. I ain't
doubting but what your plans may be good.”

“They are!” President Britt's retort was crisp.

“But when those plans put a crimp into _my_ plans--and me a steady
customer--I'm opening my mouth to ask questions.”

“You--and all other stockholders--will be fully informed by the annual
report--and will be pleased.” Britt's air was one of finality.

“Let me tell you that the mouth I have opened to ask questions will stay
open in regard to hoarding that specie where it ain't drawing interest.”

Britt jumped up and shook his fist under Stickney's snub nose. “Don't
you dare to go blabbing around the country! You might as well set off a
bomb under our bank as to circulate news that will attract robbers.”

“Bomb? Britt, I'm safe when I'm handled right, but if I'm handled
wrong--” Stickney did not finish his sentence; but his truculent air was
pregnant with suggestion.

“Do you think you can blackmail me or this bank into making an exception
in your case against our present policy? Go ahead and talk, Stickney,
and I'll post the people of this town on your selfish tactics--and
you'll see where you get off!”

Stickney did not argue the matter further. He looked like a man who
was disgusted because he had wasted so much time trying to get around
a Tasper Britt stony “No!” He picked up his papers, stamped out, and
slammed the door.

Britt shook himself, like a spiritualist medium trying to induce the
trance state, and went back to his writing.

After a time a dull, thrumming sound attracted his attention. It was
something like Files's dinner gong, whose summons Mr. Britt was wont to
obey on the instant.

Mr. Britt was certain that it was not the gong; however, he glanced
up at the clock on the wall, then he leaped out of his chair. In his
amazement he rapped out, “Well, I'll be--”

That clock was reliable; it marked the hour of twelve.

Mr. Britt had received convincing evidence that the rhapsody of
composition makes morsels of hours and gulps days in two bites.

But he had completed five stanzas. He concluded that they would do,
though he had planned on five more. Glancing over his composition, he
decided that it might be better to leave the matter a bit vague, just
as the poem left it at the end of the fifth stanza. In the corridor that
morning Vona had shown that too much precipitateness alarmed her; he
might go too far in five more stanzas. The five he had completed would
give her a hint--something to think of. He pondered on that point while
he stuck the paper into an envelope and sealed it.

Mr. Britt hurried the rest of his movements; Files's kitchen
conveniences were archaic, and the guest who was not on time got cold
viands.

The lover who had begun to stir Miss Harnden's thoughts into rather
unpleasant roiliness of doubts came hustling into the bank, hat and coat
on.

The girl and young Vaniman were spreading their respective lunches on
the center table inside the grille.

Britt called Vona to the wicket. He slipped the envelope through to her.
“There's no hurry, you understand! Take your time. Read it in a slack
moment--later! And”--he hesitated and gulped--“I want to see you after
bank hours. If you'll step in--I'll be much obliged.”

She did not assent orally, nor show especial willingness to respond to
his invitation. She took the envelope and turned toward the table after
Britt had left the wicket.

She walked to the window and gazed at the retreating back of Mr. Britt,
and put the envelope into a velvet bag that was attached by slender
chains to her girdle.

When she faced Vaniman, the young cashier was regarding her archly.

“I wonder if congratulations are in order,” he suggested.

Her quick flush was followed by a pallor that gave her an appearance of
anger. “I don't relish that sort of humor.”

“My gracious, Vona, I wasn't trying to be especially humorous,” he
protested, staring at her so ingenuously that his candor could not be
questioned. “I reckoned that the boss was raising your pay, and was
being a bit sly about it! What else can it be?”

Then she was truly disconcerted; at a loss for a reply; ashamed of her
display of emotion.

He stared hard at her. His face began to show that he was struggling
with an emotion of his own. “Vona,” he faltered, after a time, “I
haven't any right to ask you--but do you have any--is that paper--”

He was unable to go on under the straight and strange gaze she leveled
at him. She was plainly one who was taking counsel with herself. She
came to a sudden decision, and drew forth the envelope and tore it open,
unfolded the paper, and began to read.

When her eyes were not on him Vaniman revealed much of what a discerning
person would have known to be love; love that had been pursuing its way
quietly, but was now alarmed and up in arms. He narrowed his eyes and
studied her face while she read. But she did not reveal what she thought
and he became more perturbed. She finished and looked across at him and
then she narrowed her eyes to match his expression. Suddenly she leaned
forward and gave him the paper. He read it, amazement lifting his
eyebrows.

When he met her stare again they were moved by a common impulse--mirth;
mirth that was born out of their mutual amazement and was baptized by
the tears that their merriment squeezed from their eyes.

“I am not laughing at Tasper Britt,” he gasped, checking his hilarity.
“I would not laugh at any man who falls in love with you, Vona. I am
laughing at the idea of Tasper Britt writing poetry. Let me look out
of the window! Has Burkett Hill tipped over? Has the sun turned in the
heavens at high noon and started back to the east?”

“What does it mean?” she asked. Her expression excused the banality of
her query; her eyes told him that she knew, but her ears awaited his
indorsement of her woman's conviction.

He pointed to the big calendar on the wall. “It's a valentine,” he said,
gravely. But the twinkle reappeared in his eyes when he added, “And
valentines have always been used for prefaces in the volume of Love.”

She did not reflect any of his amusement. She clasped her hands and
gazed down on them, and her forehead was wrinkled with honest distress.

“Of course, you have sort of been guessing,” he ventured. “All the
renovating process--the way he has been tiptoeing around and squinting
at you!”

She looked up suddenly and caught his gaze; his tone had been hard, but
his eyes were tender.

Then it happened!

They had been hiding their deeper feelings under the thin coating
of comradeship for a long time. As in the instance of other pent-up
explosives, only the right kind of a jar was needed to “trip” the mass.

The threat of a rival--even of such a preposterous rival as Tasper
Britt--served as detonator in the case of Frank Vaniman, and the
explosion of his emotions produced sympathetic results in the girl
across the table from him. He leaped up, strode around to her and put
out his arms, and she rushed into the embrace he offered.

But their mutual consolations were denied them--he was obliged to dam
back his choking speech and she her blessed tears.

A depositor came stamping in.

They were calm, with their customary check on emotions, when they were
free to talk after the man had gone away.

“Vona, I did not mean to speak out to you so soon,” he told her. “Not
but what it was in here”--he patted his breast--“and fairly boiling all
the time!”

She assured him, with a timid look, that her own emotions had not been
different from his.

“But I have respected your obligations,” he went on, with earnest
candor. “And this is the first real job I've ever had. It's best to be
honest with each other.”

She agreed fervently.

“I wish we could be just as honest with Britt. But we both know what
kind of a man he is. The sentiment of 'Love, and the world well lost' is
better in a book than it is in this bank just now, as matters stand with
us. I have had so many hard knocks in life that I know what they mean,
and I want to save you from them. Isn't it best to go along as we
are for a little while, till I can see my way to get my feet placed
somewhere else?”

“We must do so, Frank--for the time being.” Her candor matched his. “I
do need this employment for the sake of my folks. Both of us must be
fair to ourselves--not silly. Only--”

Her forehead wrinkled again.

“I know, Vona! Britt's attentions! I'll take it on myself--”

“No,” she broke in, with dignity. “I must make that my own affair.
It can be easily settled. It's pure folly on his part. I'll make him
understand it when I talk with him this afternoon.”

“But I'll feel like a coward,” he protested, passionately.

She put up her hand and smiled. “You're not a coward, dear! Nor am I a
hypocrite. We're just two poor toilers who must do the best we can till
the clouds clear away.”

She went to him, and when her hands caressed his cheeks he bent down and
kissed her.

Then they applied themselves to their tasks in Mr. Britt's bank.



CHAPTER IV

THE ACHE OF RAPPED KNUCKLES

Landlord Files set forth a boiled dinner that day; he skinched on corned
beef and made up on cabbage; but he economized on fuel, and the cabbage
was underdone.

Mr. Britt, back in his office, allowing his various affairs to be
digested--his dinner, his political project, the valentine--his hopes
in general--found that soggy cabbage to be a particularly tough
proposition. He was not sufficiently imaginative to view his punishment
by the intractable cabbage as a premonitory hint that he was destined to
suffer as much in his pride as he did in his stomach. His pangs took his
mind off the other affairs. He was pallid and his lips were blue when
Emissary Orne came waddling into the office.

Mr. Orne, in addition to other characteristics that suggested a
fowl, had a sagging dewlap, and the February nip had colored it into
resemblance to a rooster's wattles. When he came in Mr. Orne's face was
sagging, in general. It was a countenance that was already ridged into
an expression of sympathy. When he set eyes on Britt the expression of
woe was touched up with alarm. But that the alarm had to do with the
personal affairs of Mr. Orne was shown when he inquired apprehensively
whether Mr. Britt would settle then and there for the day's work.

The candidate looked up at the office timepiece. “It ain't three
o'clock. I don't call it a day.”

“You call it a day in banking. I've got the same right to call it a day
in politics.”

“What infernal notion is afoul of you, Orne, grabbing for my money
before you report?”

“I do business with a man according to his own rules--and then he's
suited, or ought to be. You collect sharp on the dot after service has
been rendered. So do I.” Mr. Orne was displaying more acute nervous
apprehension. “And the understanding was that you'd leave it to me as
your manager, and wouldn't go banging around, yourself.”

Britt found the agent's manner puzzling. “I haven't been out of this
office, except to go to my dinner. I haven't talked politics with
anybody.”

“Oh!” remarked Orne, showing relief. “Perhaps, then, it was the way the
light fell on your face.” He peered closely at his client. Mr. Britt's
color was coming back. Orne's cryptic speeches and his haste to collect
had warmed the banker's wrath. “It'll be ten dollars, as we agreed.”

Britt yanked a big wallet from his breast pocket, plucked out a bill,
and shoved it at Orne. The latter set the bill carefully into a big
wallet of his own, “sunk” the calfskin, and buttoned up his buffalo
coat.

“It does beat blazes,” stated “Sniffer” Orne, “what a messed up state
all politics is in since this prim'ry business has put the blinko onto
caucuses and conventions. Caucuses was sensible, Mr. Britt. Needn't tell
me! Voters liked to have the wear and tear off 'em. Now a voter gets
into that booth and has to caucus by himself, and he's either so puffed
up by importance that he thinks he's the whole party or else--”

Mr. Britt's patience was ground between the millstones of anger and
indigestion. He smacked the flat of his hand on his desk. “When I want
a stump speech out of you, Orne, I'll drop you a postcard and give you
thirty days' notice so that you can get up a good one. You have made a
short day of it, as I said, but you needn't feel called on to fill it up
with a lecture.” Mr. Britt continued on pompously and revealed that he
placed his own favorable construction on the emissary's early return
from the field. “You didn't have to go very far, hey, to find out how I
stand for that nomination?”

“I went far enough so that you can depend on what I tell you.”

“Go ahead and tell, then.”

Mr. Orne slowly fished a quill toothpick from the pocket of his
overcoat, set the end of the quill in his mouth, and “sipped” the air
sibilantly, gazing over Britt's head with professional gravity. “Of
course, you're the doctor in this case and are paying the money, and if
you don't want any soothing facts, like I was intending to throw in free
of charge and for good measure, showing how the best of politicians--”

There were ominous sounds from the direction of Britt. Orne checked his
discourse, but he did not look at the candidate. “But no matter,” said
the agent. “That may be neither here nor there. You're the doctor, I
say! When I first came in here I thought you had been disobeying my
orders and had dabbled into the thing. Your face looked like you was
posted.”

“I'm paying for the goods, not for gobbling, you infernal old turkey!
Come out with the facts!”

“Facts is that the whole thing is completely gooly-washed up,” stated
Mr. Orne, with an oracle's decisiveness.

But that declaration in Mr. Orne's political terminology did not convey
much information to the candidate. Britt, thoroughly incensed by what
seemed to be evasion, leaped up, twitched the toothpick from Orne's
lips, and flung it away. “I've paid for the English language, and I want
it straight and in short words, and not trigged by a toothpick.”

“All right! You're licked before you start.”

It was a bit too straight from the shoulder--that piece of news! Britt
blinked as if he had received a blow between the eyes. He sat down and
stared at Orne, elbows on the arms of the chair, hands limply hanging
from lax wrists.

“It's this way!” Mr. Orne started, briskly, with upraised forefinger;
but he shook his head and put down his hand. He turned away. “I forgot.
You ordered plain facts.”

“You hold on!” Britt thundered. “How do you dare to tell me that you can
go out and in fifteen minutes come back with information of that sort?”

Mr. Orne glanced reproachfully from his detractor to the clock; he had
not the same reasons as Mr. Britt had for finding the hours of the day
fleeting. “Mr. Britt, a man doesn't need to make a hoss of himself and
eat a whole head of cabbage by way of sampling it.” Britt winced at the
random simile. “It's the same way with me in sampling politics, being an
expert. Your case, to start with, had me gy-poogled and--”

“English language, I tell you!” Britt emphasized his stand as a stickler
by a tremendous thump of his fist on the desk.

Orne jabbed his finger back and forth from his breast to the direction
of Britt, with the motions of the “eeny, meeny” game. “I was mistook.
You was mistook. I figgered on your money. So did you. I figgered you'd
go strong in politics like you had in _finance_. So did you.” Mr. Orne
put his hand up sidewise and sliced the air. “Nothing doing in politics,
Mr. Britt! You can cash in on straight capital, but there ain't a cent
in the dollar for you when you try to collect in what you 'ain't ever
invested. A man don't have to be so blamed popular after he is well
settled in politics; but you've got to have some real human-nature
assets to get a start with. You've got to depend on given votes--not the
boughten ones.”

“Orne, you're rasping me mighty hard.”

“You demanded facts--not hair-oil talk.”

“Then the facts are--” Britt hesitated.

“Facts is that, by the usual arrangement in the legislative class of
towns, Egypt had the choice this year. You won't get a vote in Egypt.”

“But the men who come in here--” Again Britt halted in a sentence.

“The men who come in here and sit down at that desk and pick up a pen
to sign a note have fixed on their grins before they open your door. But
the men who get into a voting booth alone with God and a lead pencil,
they'll jab down on to that ballot a cross for t'other candidate that'll
look like a dent in a tin dipper. Somebody else might lie to you about
the situation, Mr. Britt. I've done consid'able lying in politics, too.
But when I'm hired by a man to deliver goods--and same has been paid
for--my word can be depended on.”

Britt turned around and looked into the depths of his desk, staring
vacantly. His rounded shoulders suggested grief. Orne settled his wallet
more firmly, pressing on the outside of the buffalo coat. His face again
sagged with sympathy. “Mr. Britt, it's only like what most of us do in
this life--take smiles without testing 'em with acid--take words-current
for what they seem to be worth, and then we do test 'em out and--”

Britt whirled and broke on this fatuous preachment with an oath. Mr.
Orne thriftily withheld further sympathy; it was plainly wasted.

“Orne, I hope it's about due to revise the New Testament again. I
want to send in some footnotes for that page where Judas Iscariot is
mentioned. I want a full roster of his descendants to appear; I'll
furnish the voting list of this town. Get out of here and pass that
word.”

But a yelp from the candidate halted the departing Orne at the
door. “Seeing that you have my ten dollars and are full of political
information, perhaps you'll throw in free of charge who it is this town
is going to send to the legislature!”

“Only one thing has been decided on so far,” returned the politician.
“And, having no desire to rub it in, I'll let you draw your own
conclusions.” Mr. Orne had the door open; he dodged out and slammed the
door shut.

It was promptly opened--so promptly that Mr. Britt was fairly caught at
what he was about. He was standing up, shaking both fists at the door
and cursing roundly. Vona was gazing at him in alarm.

“I was waiting in the corridor, sir, till you--till your business--till
Mr. Orne went away,” she stammered.

“Come in!” muttered Britt, even more disconcerted than the girl.

Then he wished that he had told her to go away. He realized that he was
in no mood or condition to woo; the cabbage had tortured him, but this
new sort of indigestion in the very soul of him had left him without
poise or courage.

He slumped down in his chair and waved a limp hand in invitation for her
to take a seat near him. But she merely came and stood in the middle of
the room and surveyed him with an uncompromising air of business. From
the velvet toque, with just a suggestion of a coquettish cant on her
brown curls, down her healthily round cheeks, a bit flushed, above the
fur neckpiece that clasped her throat, Britt's fervent eyes strayed. And
some of the words of the Prophet's singsong monotone echoed in the empty
chambers of Britt's consciousness, “'Thou hast dove's eyes within thy
locks--thy lips are like a thread of scarlet.'”

But she was aloof. She held herself rigidly erect. Her eyes were coldly
inquiring. Those lips were set tightly. Mr. Britt had just been reaching
out for honors, and his knuckles had been rapped cruelly. He wanted to
reach out for love--and he dared not. The girl, as she stood there, was
so patently among the things he was not able to possess!

She had come into his presence with expectation keenly alert, with her
fears putting her into a mental posture of defense. She felt that she
knew just what was going to happen, and she was assuring herself that
she would be able to meet the situation. But she was not prepared for
what did happen. She did not understand Britt's mental state of that
moment. Mr. Britt, himself, did not understand. He had never been up
against conditions of that sort. He had not had time to fix his face and
his mood, as he did daily before the mirror in his bedroom. He did what
nobody had ever seen him do--what neither he nor the girl would have
predicted one minute before as among human probabilities--he broke down
and blubbered like a whipped urchin.

And after he had recovered some of his composure and was gazing up at
her again, sniffling and scrubbing his reddened eyes with the bulge
at the base of his thumb, knowing that he must say something by way
of legitimate excuse, dreading the ridicule that a girl's gossip might
bring upon him, a notion that was characteristic of Mr. Britt came
to him: he grimly weighed the idea of telling her that Files's boiled
dinner was the cause of his breakdown. However, in his weakness, his
love flamed more hotly than ever before.

“Vona, I'm so lonesome!” he gulped.

Miss Harnden had entered behind her shield, nerved like a battling
Amazon. She promptly lowered that shield and became all woman, with a
woman's instinctive sympathetic understanding, but womanlike, she took
the opportunity to introduce for her own defense a bit of guile with her
sympathy. “I quite understand how you feel about the loss of Mrs. Britt,
sir. And I'm glad because you remain so loyal to her memory.”

Mr. Britt, like a man who had received a dipperful of cold water in the
face, backed away from anything like a proposal at that unpropitious
moment. But in all his arid nature he felt the need of some sort of
consolation from a feminine source. “Vona, I've just had a terrible
setback,” he mourned. “There's only one other disappointment that could
be any worse--and I don't dare to think of that right now.”

Miss Harnden apprehensively proceeded to keep him away from the
prospective disappointment, dwelling on the present, asking him
solicitously what had happened.

He told her of his ambition and of what Ossian Orne had reported.

“But why should that be so very important for a man like you--to go to
the legislature--Mr. Britt?”

He opened his mouth, hankering to blurt out what he had been treasuring
as dreams whose realization would serve as an inducement to her. He had
been picturing to himself their honeymoon at the state capital, away
from the captious tongues of Egypt--how he would stalk with his handsome
bride into the dining room of the capital's biggest hotel; how she would
attract the eyes of jealous men, in her finery and with her jewels; how
she would sit in the gallery at the State House and survey him making
his bigness among the lawmakers; for some weeks he had been laboring on
the composition of a speech that he intended to deliver. But her second
dash of cold water kept him from the disclosure of his feelings. He
went on so far as to ask her if she did not think a session at the state
capital would be interesting.

“I have never thought anything about such a matter, of course, Mr.
Britt, being only a girl and not a politician.”

“But women who are there get into high society and wear fine clothes and
have a grand time, Vona.”

“It must be a tedious life,” she replied, indifferently.

“Wouldn't you like to try it?” Now that he could not offer her the grand
inducement he had planned as an essential part of his campaign of love
he sought consolation in her assurance that the prospect did not tempt
her. His hopes revived. He was reflecting that his money could buy
railroad tickets, even if he had not the popularity with which to win
votes. She shook her head promptly when he asked the question, and he
went on with his new idea. “I suppose what a girl really enjoys is to
see the world, after she has been penned up all her life in a town like
this.”

“I don't waste my time in foolish longings, Mr. Britt. In fact, I have
no time to waste on anything.” She gave him a bit of a smile. “In that
connection I'll confess that I must hurry home and help mother with some
sewing. Did you want anything especial of me?” Her smile had vanished,
and in her tone there was a clink of the metallic that was as subtly
suggestive of “On guard” as the click of a trigger.

Mr. Britt had planned upon a radiant disclosing of his
projects--expecting to be spurred in his advances by the assurance of
what he could offer her as the consort of a legislator--as high an honor
as his narrow vision could compass. She had found him cursing, had
kept him at bay, and he had already had evidence of the danger of
precipitateness in her case. And his tears made him feel foolish. His
ardor had been wet down; it took a back seat. His natural good judgment
was again boss of the situation.

“I had something on my mind--but it can wait till you're in less of a
hurry, Vona. Never neglect a mother. That's my attitude toward women.
I'm always considerate where they're concerned. It's my nature. I hope
you'll hold that in mind.”

“Yes, Mr. Britt.” She turned and hurried to the door, getting away from
a fire that was showing signs of breaking out of its smoldering brands
once more.

Britt recovered some of his courage when her back was turned. “You
haven't said anything about those verses,” he stammered.

“I think it's a beautiful way of putting aside your business cares for a
time. I'm taking them home to read to mother.”

He marched to the window and watched her as long as she was in sight.

Then he glowered on such of the Egyptians as passed to and fro along
the street on their affairs. He muttered, spicing his comments with
profanity. The girl's disclaimer of personal interest in Britt's
ambitions did not soften his rancorous determination to make the voters
of Egypt suffer for the stand they had taken--suffer to the bitter limit
to which unrelenting persecution could drive them. He gritted his teeth
and raved aloud. “From now on! From now on! Anything short of murder to
show 'em! And as for that girl--if there's somebody--”

Britt stopped short of what that rival might expect, but his expression
indicated that the matter was of even more moment than his affair with
the voters of the town.



CHAPTER V

“AND PHARAOH'S HEART WAS HARDENED”

When Vona left him that afternoon, Vaniman paced the floor.

She had gone bravely to her meeting with Britt, bearing Frank's kiss on
her cheek--a caress of encouragement when he had walked with her to the
door in order to lock it after her.

It was not worry that caused him to tramp to and fro, frowning. Vona's
demeanor of self-reliance had helped his feelings a great deal. But the
corollary of devoted love is chivalry, and he felt that he was allowing
her to do something that belonged to him to so, somehow. The policy
which they had so sanely discussed did not seem to be such a comfortable
course when he was alone, wondering what was going on across the
corridor.

At last the sound of a door and the click of her heels signaled the
end of the interview. He hoped that she would come back into the bank,
making an excuse of something forgotten, in order to give him a soothing
bulletin. He ran to the door and opened it. But the slam of the outside
door informed him that she had gone on her way. Her prompt departure
indicated that she was consistently pursuing the level-headed policy
they had adopted; but the young man, impatient and wondering, was
wishing she had taken a change, for once, even to the prejudice of
policy. He shut his door and hurried to the window.

Though two men were watching her going-away, and though she must have
been conscious of the fact, she did not turn her head to glance behind
her.

At any rate, the thing was over, whatever had happened, the cashier
reflected with relief. Nevertheless, curiosity was nagging at him; he
felt an impulse to go in and inspect the condition of Tasper Britt by
way of securing a hint.

Vaniman, however, shook his head and dropped into the routine of his
duties. The ruts of life in Egypt, especially in the winter, were
deep ones. The cashier had become contented with his little circle of
occupation and recreation.

He carried the books into the vault. He wound the clock that controlled
the mechanism of bolts and bars, and pushed the big outer door shut and
made certain that it was secure.

Having finished as cashier, he became janitor.

Egypt had no electric lights. Vaniman trimmed the kerosene reflector
lamp and set it on the table so that the front of the safe would be
illuminated for the benefit of the village's night watchman.

Then he put on his cap and overcoat and locked the grille door and the
bank door after he had passed each portal. His last chore of the day was
always a trip into the basement to make sure that the dying fire in the
wood furnace was carefully closed in for the night.

The basement stairs led from the rear of the corridor. When Vaniman
returned up the stairs he had settled on a small matter of business
which would serve as a valid excuse for entering the presence of
President Britt. But he did not need to employ the excuse. Britt stood
in his open door and called to the cashier and walked back to his chair,
leaving Vaniman to follow, and the employee obeyed the summons with
alacrity; he was consumed with desire to get a line on the situation
that had been troubling him.

An observer would have called the contest of mutual inspection a
fifty-fifty break--perhaps with a shade in favor of Britt, for the
usurer's face was like leather and his goggling marbles of eyes under
the lids that resembled little tents did not flicker.

“What can I do for you?” Britt demanded, and the query made for the
young man's discomposure.

“Why, you called me in, sir!”

“Uh-huh!” the president admitted, “but somehow I had the impression
that you said you wanted to see me after the bank closed.” He was taking
account of stock of Vaniman's personality, his eyes going up and down
the stalwart figure and dwelling finally and persistently on the young
man's hair; it was copper-bronze in hue, it had an attractive wave,
there was plenty of it, and it seemed to be very firmly rooted.

“I don't remember that I mentioned it, Mr. Britt, but I do have an
errand with you.”

“All right! What is it?” Mr. Britt was not revealing any emotions that
Vaniman found illuminating in regard to his particular quest.

“I am being tongue-lashed terribly through the wicket. Men won't believe
that I'm obeying the orders of you and the board when accommodation is
refused. Won't you take the matter off my hands--let me refer all to
you?”

“I don't keep a dog and do my own barking,” rasped the president. He
brought his eyes down from the young man's hair and noted that Vaniman
stiffened and was displaying resentment.

“That's only a Yankee motto--you needn't take it as personal, Vaniman.
I have turned over to you the running of the bank. I say to all that
you're running it. You ought to feel pretty well set up!”

“I obey your orders, sir,” returned the cashier, not warming.

“That's all right for an understanding between us two. But I let the
public think you're the whole thing. I tell 'em I've got full confidence
in you. You don't want the public to think you're only a rubber stamp,
do you?”

“The general opinion right now seems to be that I'm either a first-class
liar or Shylock sentenced to a second term on earth,” retorted Vaniman,
with bitterness.

There was a long silence in the room, where the early dusk was
deepening. The two men regarded each other with expressions that did not
soften.

After a time Britt turned to his desk, unlocked a compartment, and
produced a letter, which he unfolded slowly, again staring hard at the
cashier.

“Speaking of being sentenced!” There was something ominous in his drawl.
“You told me a whole lot about yourself, Vaniman, when I was talking of
hiring you. But there was one important thing you didn't mention--mighty
important, seeing that you wanted a job as boss of a bank.” He tapped
the open letter. “I've had this letter for a good many weeks, not saying
anything about it to you or anybody else. I'm not sure just why I'm
saying anything now.”

Vaniman flushed. His face worked with emotion. He put up his hand and
started to speak, but Britt put up a more compelling hand and went on.
“I reckon I'm bringing this matter up so that you'll know just where
you stand--so that you'll mind your eye and look out for my interests
in every way from now on--so that--” He hesitated a moment. His eyes
flamed. “So that you'll know your place! That's it! Know your place--and
be mighty careful how you go against me in anything--anything where I'm
interested.” Britt had whipped himself into anger. That anger, fanned by
a flame of jealousy after it had been touched off by his inspection of
youth and good looks, had carried Mr. Britt far. He shook the letter at
the young man. “There's a reliable name signed to this letter; he is a
friend of mine, one of the big financiers in the city, and this was in
the way of friendly warning.”

“I understand, Mr. Britt.” The cashier had recovered his
self-possession. “You are warned that my father was sentenced to the
penitentiary for embezzlement. No, I did not mention that to you. It
concerned a man who is dead. It has nothing to do with my honesty.”

“Well, there's another motto about 'blood will tell,'” sneered Britt.

Vaniman stepped forward, honestly indignant, manfully resolute. “Let
me tell you, sir, that the letter you hold there--no matter who wrote
it--concerns a _good_ man who is dead. He was the scapegoat of one of
those big financiers.” Vaniman's lip curled. “My father was railroaded
to jail on a track greased with lies--and died because the heart had
been ripped out of him and--”

“Hold on! It won't get us anywhere to try that case all over, Vaniman.
Let the letter stand as it is--it was probably meant in the right
spirit. But I didn't write it. You and I better not fight over it. I've
shown, by laying it away and saying nothing, that I have a decent nature
in me. I hope I'll never have any need to take it out of this desk
again.” He turned and shoved the paper back and locked the compartment.

“I think it is best for me to resign, Mr. Britt.”

“Don't be a fool, young man. Now that this thing is off our minds
there's a better understanding between us than ever. I don't think--I
hope”--he surveyed Vaniman with leisure in which there was the
suggestion of a threat--“I'll never have any occasion to take that
letter out again. Er--ah--” Britt joggled a watch charm and inquired,
casually, “Would you plan on getting married if I boost your wages a
little?”

In spite of an effort to control himself under Britt's basilisk stare,
Vaniman showed how much the query had jumped him.

“Of course, a chap like you has had his sweetheart down in the city,”
 pursued the inquisitor when the young man failed to answer. “Must be one
there now.”

“I have no sweetheart in the city, Mr. Britt.”

Then there was a longer silence in the room. The cashier was not
enduring inspection with an air that did credit to his promise to keep a
secret. Britt had made a breach in the wall of Vaniman's mental defense
by the means of that letter and its implied accusation; Britt was taking
advantage of that breach. Right then the young man was in a mood that
would have prompted him to fling the truth and his defiance at Britt if
the latter had kept on to the logical conclusion of his interrogation
and had asked whether there was a sweetheart elsewhere; Vaniman had
the feeling that by denying his love at that moment--to that man of all
others--he would be dealing insult to Vona Harnden, as well as taking
from her the protection that his affection gave her.

The attention of Britt was diverted from the quarry he was pursuing.

Outside Britt Block, Prophet Elias raised his voice in his regular
“vesper service.” It was his practice, on his way to Usial Britt's
cottage from his daily domiciliary visits, to halt in front of the bank
and deliver a few texts. The first one--and the two men in the office
listened--was of the general tenor of those addressed to “Pharaoh.”
 Said the Prophet, in resounding tones, “'As a roaring lion and a ranging
bear, so is a wicked ruler over the poor people.'”

“Vaniman, go out and tell that old hoot owl to move on! I'm in a
dangerous frame of mind to-day.” Britt's lips were pulled tightly
against his yellow teeth.

The Prophet's next deliverance was more concretely to the
point--indicating that the exhorter was not so much wrapped up in
religion that he had no ear out for the political news current in Egypt
that day, “'Pride goeth before destruction, and an haughty spirit before
a fall.'”

There was a fireplace in the office and Britt leaped to it and grabbed
a poker. The cashier was moved to interfere, urged by two compelling
motives. He wanted to get away from his own dangerous situation of the
moment in that office--and he wanted to protect the old man outside
from assault. “I'll attend to him, sir!” But he halted at the door and
turned. “Mr. Britt, our talk has driven an important matter from my
mind. The men who bellow at me through the wicket have considerable to
say about our hoarding specie. It makes me uneasy to have that sort of
gossip going the rounds.”

“We'll have the money out of here in a short time, Vaniman, as I have
told you. That broker says that foreign money is going lower yet--and
seeing that we've taken all this trouble to get the hard cash ready for
the deal, we may as well make the clean-up as big as we can.”

“Don't you think we'd better hire a couple of good men with rifles and
put 'em in the bank nights, sir?”

President Britt declared with scorn that the expense was not necessary,
that putting guards in the bank would only start more talk, and that
it also would be essential to hire old Ike Jones to sit in front of
the vault and play all night on his trombone to keep awake any two
men picked from Egypt. While Britt was expressing his opinion of
inefficiency and expense, the Prophet was furnishing this obbligato
outside, “'He that by usury and unjust gain increaseth his substance, he
shall gather it for him that will pity the poor.'”

Vaniman closed the door on Britt's objurgations.

The young man did not find it necessary to prevail upon the Prophet to
give over his discourse. As soon as the emissary appeared Elias folded
his ample umbrella, tucked it under his arm, gave Vaniman a friendly
greeting, and winked at him. The twilight dimmed the seamed face and
the young man wondered whether he had been mistaken about the sly
suggestiveness of that wink.

“Joseph, how doth Pharaoh rest on his throne? Doth he sit easy?”

Always in their brief but good-natured interviews the evangelist called
the young man “Joseph.” Elias took Vaniman's arm and walked along with
him.

“I'm afraid, Prophet Elias, that you'll provoke Mr. Britt too far. Take
my advice. Keep away from him for a time.”

“'There be three things which are too wonderful for me, yeah, four which
I know not: the way of an eagle in the air, the way of a serpent upon
a rock, the way of a ship in the midst of the sea, and the way of a man
with a maid,'” said the Prophet, placidly. “Furthermore, 'The proud have
digged pits for me.' Joseph, the pitfalls encompass thee.”

Vaniman refrained from making a reply; the Prophet was displaying an
embarrassing amount of sapience as to conditions.

In front of Usial Britt's cot they halted and the eccentric leaned close
to Vaniman's ear. “Joseph, my son, keep thine eye peeled.” He released
the cashier's arm and strode to the door of Usial's house.

Vaniman, delaying his departure, noted that the door did not give way
when the Prophet wrenched at the knob. The guest banged his fist against
a panel. “Let it be opened unto me!” he shouted.

His voice served as his guaranty; Usial Britt opened the door and
slammed it shut so suddenly after the Prophet had entered that it was
necessary to reopen the portal and release the tail of Elias's robe.



CHAPTER VI

“THE HORNET” GOES TO PRESS

Vaniman did not go on his way at once, though, by his daily routine, he
was headed toward his bit of recreation which cheered the end of his
day of occupation. Every afternoon he dropped in at the office of Notary
Amos Hexter--“Squire” Hexter, the folks of Egypt called him--and played
euchre with the amiable old chap. After the euchre, the Squire and Frank
trudged over to the Hexter home; the cashier boarded with the Squire and
his wife, Xoa.

In his general uneasiness, in his hankering for any sort of information
that would help his affairs, the young man was tempted to follow the
provocative Elias and pin him down to something definite; the flashes of
shrewd sanity in the fanatic's mouthings had encouraged Frank to believe
that the Prophet was not quite as much of an ingenuous lunatic as his
gab and garb suggested.

Right away, curiosity of another sort added its impulse.

Usial's windows were uncurtained, though the grime on them helped to
conceal activities within by a sort of ground-glass effect. But Vaniman
could see well enough to understand what was going on. Every once in a
while a canvas flap came over in a half circle across Vaniman's line
of vision through one of the windows. Then a hairy arm turned a crank
briskly; a moment later the arm pulled at a horizontal bar with vigor.

It was plain that Usial Britt was printing.

Vaniman had seen the shoemaker's printing equipment in common with
everybody else who dropped into the shop. There were a few cases of worn
type; there was a venerable Washington hand press. Vaniman had even been
down on his knees, by Usial's invitation, and had peered up at the under
surface of the imposing stone.

When Tasper Britt wanted a burial lot in the Egypt cemetery of a size
sufficient to set off his statue in good shape, he secured a hillock in
which some of the patriarchs of the pioneers had been interred. There
was no known descendants to say him nay. A fallen slate slab that had
been long concealed in the tangled grass was tossed over the cemetery
fence by the men who cleared up the hillock. Usial Britt considered the
slab a legitimate find and with it replaced a marble imposing stone
that had become gouged and cracked. Vaniman had found the inscription
interesting when he knelt and peered up:

     Here Lies the Body of THOSPIT WAGG,
     In Politics a Whig.
     By Occupation a Cooper in a Hoop-pole Town.
     Now Food for Worms.
     Here I Lie, Like an Old Rum Puncheon,
     Marked, Numbered and Shooked,
     To be Raised at Last and Finished by the Hand of My Maker.

As Egypt knew, Usial Britt did not print for profit. He accepted no pay
of any sort for the product of his press. When the spirit moved, or he
felt that the occasion demanded comment in print, he “stuck” the
worn type, composing directly from the case without first putting his
thoughts on paper, and printed and issued a sheet which he titled _The
Hornet_. Sometimes _The Hornet_ buzzed blandly--more often it stung
savagely.

Vaniman obeyed his impulse; he went to the door and knocked. He had
always found Usial Britt in a sociable mood.

“Who is it?” inquired the shoemaker.

“Vaniman of the bank.”

“Leave your job, whatever it is, on the threshold, sir.”

“I am not bringing you any work, Mr. Britt.”

“Then kindly pass on; I'm in executive session, sir.”

The grumble of the cogs and the squeak of the press went on.

So did Vaniman, after he had waited at the door for a few moments.

Squire Hexter had a corner of his table cleaned of paper litter, in
readiness for the euchre game.

He was tilted back in his chair, smoking his blackened T. D. pipe, and a
swinging boot was scraping to and fro along the spine of a fuzzy old dog
whose head was meditatively lowered while he enjoyed the scratching.
The Squire called the old dog “Eli”; that name gave Hexter a frequent
opportunity to turn his little joke about having owned another dog that
he called “Uli” and presented to a brother lawyer as an appropriate
gift.

The Squire had little dabs of whiskers on his cheeks like fluffs of
cotton batting, and his wide mouth linked those dabs when he smiled.

He came forward promptly in his chair, slapped his palm on the waiting
pack of cards, and cut for the deal while Vaniman was throwing off his
coat.

“Judging by signs, as I came past Britt's shop, _The Hornet_ is getting
ready to buzz again,” said the cashier.

“Aye! I reckoned as much. I have looked across there from time to time
to-day and have seen customers knocking in vain on the door. It's your
deal, boy!”

Vaniman shuffled obediently.

“And there was a run-in this morning between your boss and his brother,”
 observed the Squire, scratching a match. “And Eli, here, called my
attention to the fact that two sun dogs, strangers to him, were chasing
along with the sun all the forenoon. Signs of trouble, boy--sure signs!”
 He sorted his cards. It was more of the Squire's regular line of humor
to ascribe to Eli various sorts of comment and counsel.

“How crazy do you think Prophet Elias is?” inquired the young man,
avoiding further reference to his employer.

“After listening many times to the testimony of expert alienists in
court trials I have come to the conclusion that all the folks in the
world are crazy, son, or else nobody is ever crazy. I don't think I'll
express any opinion on the Prophet. I might find myself qualifying as an
alienist expert. I'd hate to!”

After that mild rebuff Vaniman gave all his mind to the game--for when
the Squire played euchre he wanted to attend strictly to the business
in hand. And in the span of time between dusk and supper the two were
rarely interrupted.

But on this afternoon they were out of luck.

Men came tramping up the screaking outside stairs that conducted to the
office; the Squire had a room over Ward's general store.

The men were led into the office by Isaac Jones--“Gid-dap Ike,” he was
named--the driver of the mail stage between Egypt and the railroad at
Levant.

For a moment Squire Hexter looked really alarmed. There were half
a dozen men in the party and he was not accustomed to irruptions of
numbers. Then his greeting smile linked his whisker tufts. Mr. Jones and
his party pulled off their hats and by their demeanor of awkward dignity
stood convicted as being members of a delegation formally presenting
themselves.

“Hullo, boys! Have chairs. Excuse the momentary hesitation. I was afraid
you had come after me with a soaped rope.”

“I reckon we won't set,” stated Mr. Jones. “And we'll be straight and to
the point, seeing that a game is on. Squire Hexter, me and these gents
represent the voters of Egypt. We ask you to accept the nomination to
the legislature from this town for next session. So say I.”

“So say we all!” chorused the other men.

The Squire set the thumb and forefinger of each hand into a whisker
fluff and twisted a couple of spills, squinting at them. “The compliment
is esteemed, boys. But the previousness is perplexing. This is February,
and the primaries are not till June.”

“Squire Hexter, it ain't too early to show a man in this town where he
gets off. That man is Tasper Britt. He has had ten dollars' worth of
telling to-day by 'Sniffer' Orne. But telling ain't showing. What do you
say?”

The Squire gave Jones a whimsical wink and indicated the attentive
Vaniman with a jab of the thumb. “S-s-sh! Look out, or the rate of
interest will go up.”

Jones and his associates scowled at the cashier, and Vaniman understood
with added bitterness the extent of his vicarious atonement as Britt's
mouthpiece at the wicket of the bank.

“The interest-payers of this town have been well dreened. But the
voters--the _voters_, understand, still have assets. The voters have got
to the point where they ain't afraid of Tasper Britt. The cashier of
his bank can so report to him, if the said cashier so chooses--and, as
cashier, probably will.”

“The cashier will attend strictly and exclusively to his bank duties,
and to nothing else,” declared Vaniman, with heat.

“Hope you're enjoying 'em, such as they are of late,” Jones retorted.
“But once again, what say, Squire Hexter?”

“Boys, you'd better get somebody else to sandpaper Tasper Britt with.
I'm not gritty enough.”

“I'll come across with our full idea, Squire. It ain't simply to
sandpaper Britt with that we want you to go. But we need some kind of
legislation to help this town out of the hole. We don't know where we
are. We can't raise money to pay state taxes, and we ain't getting our
school money from the state, nor any share of the roads appropriation,
nor--”

“I know, Ike,” broke in the Squire, not requiring any legal posting from
a layman. “But it's the lobbyist, instead of the legislator, who really
counts at the state capital. I've been planning to do a little lobbying
at the next session. I'll tell you now that I'll go, and, by hooking a
clean collar around each ankle under my socks, I'll be prepared for a
two weeks' stay. Send somebody else to work for the state and I'll go
and work for Egypt.”

“The voters want you,” Jones insisted.

The Squire rapped his toe against the old dog at his feet. “What say,
Eli?”

“Wuff!” the dog replied, emphatically.

“Can't go as a legislator, boys! Eli says 'No.'”

“This ain't no time for joking,” growled the spokesman.

“Certainly not!” The Squire snapped back his retort briskly. He was
serious. “I agree with you that this poor old town needs help and a
hearing. But when I go to the State House I propose to wear out shoe
leather instead of pants cloth. If you must rasp Britt, go get a real
file!”

“Who in the blazes can we get?” demanded Jones, helplessly.

The Squire laid down the hand of cards which he had just picked up, thus
signaling the end of the interview, impatiently motioning to Vaniman to
play; then the notary narrowed his eyes and pondered.

The silence was broken by more screaking of the outside stairs.

Prophet Elias stalked into the office. He carried limp, damp sheets
across a forearm--papers that had been well wet down in order to take
impressions from the Washington press. The men in the room waited for
one of his sonorous promulgations of biblical truth. But he said no
word, and his silence was more impressive because it was unwonted. He
marched straight to the Squire and gave him one of the sheets. Then
the Prophet turned and strode toward the door. Jones put out his hand,
asking for one of the papers. Elias shook his head. “Yon scribe has a
voice. Let him read aloud. I have but few papers--they must be spent
thriftily.” He passed on and went out.

“One of the city newspapers ought to hire him for a newsboy,” remarked
Mr. Jones, acridly. “He could scare up a big circulation.”

The only light in the dim room was afforded by the big lamp at the
Squire's elbow. He spread the sheet on the table in the lamp's circle of
radiance. “Boys, _The Hornet_ is out and it looks as if it has a barb in
its stinger,” he stated, and then paused while he fixed his spectacles
upon his nose.

Vaniman, sitting close by, felt that a glance at a public sheet was not
invading privacy.

A smutted heading in wood type was smeared across the top of the page.
It counseled:


VOTE FOR BRITT. GIVE PHARAOH HIS KINGLY CROWN


There was a broad, blank space in one of the upper corners of the sheet.
Under the space was this explanation:


Portrait of Tasper Britt, with his latest improvements. But, on second
thought, out of regard for the feelings of our readers, we omit the
portrait.


The Squire, getting control of emotions which the observing Jones and
his associates noted with rising interest, demurely explained to them
the layout of the page after he had carefully inspected the sheet.

Then Squire Hexter began to read aloud, in a tone whose twist of satire
gave the text its full flavor:


“We hasten to proclaim in the land of Egypt that Pharaoh Britt has
reached for the scepter, though he had not loosed his grip on the gouge.
You will know him here and hereafter by his everlasting grip on the
gouge. He will take that gouge to Tophet with him. Then it will be
heated red-hot and he will prance around hell astraddle of it. But in
the meantime he is hot after the honors of this world. Give him his
crown, say we. He has prepared a nice, new hair mattress on his brow
where the diadem will rest easy. Under his coat of arms--to wit, a
yellow he-goat rampant in a field of purple thistles--let him write the
word 'Victory.'”


The men in that room were Yankees, with a sense of humor as keen as a
new bush scythe.

The Squire sat back and wiped his spectacles and beamed on their
laughter. Then he read on down the column, through the biting satire to
the bitter end, having an audience whose hilarity would have delighted a
vaudeville performer's soul.

Therefore, it was with inspired unction that the reader delivered the
“tag lines” of the screed.


“We confess that we have a selfish purpose in paying this affectionate,
brotherly tribute to Pharaoh. When he has deigned to refer to us in
the past he has called us 'Useless' Britt. Now, if this tribute has the
effect that we devoutly hope for, Pharaoh may be of a mind to give us
back our right name. We ask nothing else in the way of recompense.”


The Squire folded the paper carefully and put it away in his breast
pocket with the manner of one caching a treasure. “Boys, what are you
waiting for?” he inquired, with an affectation of surprise.

Their wide grins narrowed into the creases of wonderment of their own.

Hexter patted his breast where he had stowed away the paper. “Egypt has
a literary light, a journalist who wields a pen of power, a shoemaker
philosopher. And modest--not grasping! See how little he asks for
himself. Why not give him a real present? Why not--”

Spokesman Jones perceived what the counsel was aiming at and
ecstatically shouted, “Gid-dap!”

“Why not use real sandpaper?” urged the squire, with innocent mildness.

Jones whirled and drove his delegation ahead of him from the room, both
hands upraised, fingers and thumbs snapping loud cracks as if he were
urging his horses up Burkett Hill with snapping whip. The men went
tramping down the outside stairs, bellowing the first honest-to-goodness
laughter that Egypt had heard for many a day.

Squire Hexter leaped up and grabbed his hat and coat from their hooks.
“Come on, boy! It looks as if there's going to be a nominating bee at
_The Hornet_ office--and we mustn't miss any of the buzzing.”

The two followed close on the heels of the noisy delegation.

Usial Britt opened his door and stood in the frame of light after Jones
had halted his clamorous crowd. The amateur publicist rolled his inky
hands in his apron and showed doubt that was growing into alarm.

“Hold your nippety pucket, Usial,” counseled Hexter, calling over the
heads of the men. “The boys had me guessing, too, a few minutes ago. But
this isn't a lynching bee.”

However, while the crowd laughed and others came hastening to the scene,
and while Spokesman Jones was trying to make himself heard above the
uproar, an element was added which seemed to discount the Squire's
reassuring words.

Tasper Britt rushed out from Files's tavern and stood on the porch. He
had one of the papers in his hand. He ripped the paper to tatters
and strewed about him the bits and stamped on the litter. He shrieked
profanity. Then he leaped off the porch.

In the tavern yard was “Gid-dap” Jones's stage pung. Britt yanked the
big whip from its socket and bounced across the street, untangling the
lash.

“No, you don't!” bellowed Jones, getting in the way and making grabs
at the whip. “Not with my own private persuader! Get aholt of him, men!
Down him. Don't let him whale the representative we're going to send
from the town of Egypt!”

That declared hint of what was afoot put the last touch on Tasper
Britt's fury. He fought savagely to force his way through the men.

The voice of Usial checked the melee. He shouted with a compelling
quality in his tone. As the man on whom they proposed to bestow the
town's highest honor, he had already acquired new authority. The men
loosed Tasper Britt.

“This is between brothers,” said Usial. He had stepped from his doorway.
He stood alone. “What outsider dares to interfere?”

Tasper Britt employed his freedom promptly and brutally; he leaped along
the avenue the men left for him and began to lash Usial with the whip.
The stolid townsfolk of Egypt stood in their tracks.

“That's the best way--let 'em fight it out,” counseled Spokesman Jones.
“Tasp Britt will get his, and it'll be in the family!”

But Usial merely tossed his big apron over his head and crouched and
took the lashing.

“Isn't somebody going to stop that?” Vaniman demanded.

Nobody moved. Egypt had its own ideas about interference in family
matters, it seemed, and had been tartly reminded of those ideas by Usial
Britt himself.

But Vaniman was an outlander. He saw his employer disgracing himself; he
beheld an unresisting victim cruelly maltreated.

The young man jumped on Tasper Britt and tried to hold his arms. When
Britt whirled and broke loose by the twist of his quick turn and struck
the cashier with the whip, Vaniman wrested away the weapon, using all
his vigorous strength, and threw it far. Then he seized the frothing
assailant and forced him back toward the tavern. “Mr. Britt, remember
what you are--the president of our bank--a prominent man--” Vaniman
gasped, protesting. “When you're yourself you'll thank me!”

But there was no sign of gratitude in Britt's countenance just then. His
crazed rage was shifted to this presumptuous person who had interfered
and was manhandling him; at that moment the liveliest emotion in Britt
was the mordant jealousy that he had been trying to stifle. It awoke and
raged, finding real excuse for the venting of its rancor on the man who
had made him jealous.

“You damnation spawn of a jailbird--”

The young man had a rancor of his own that he had been holding in leash
ever since he had sent Vona to fight her own battle, with his kiss
on her cheek. He broke off that vitriolic taunt by dealing Britt an
open-handed slap across the mouth, a blow of such force that the man
went reeling backward. And when Britt beheld Vaniman's face, as the
young man came resolutely along, the magnate of Egypt kept going
backward of his own accord, flapping hands of protest. “Vaniman, here
and now I discharge you from the bank.”

“Mr. Britt, that's a matter for the vote of the directors--and I'll wait
to hear from them.”

Vaniman whirled from Britt, for the impulse was in him to smash his
doubled fist into that hateful visage; his palm still itched; the
open-handed buffet had not satisfied the tingling nerves of that hand.

Usial Britt had not hurried about raising himself from his crouching
position. He was standing with his apron over his head and faced the
citizens. He was smiling--an irradiating, genial, triumphant sort of
smile! One might readily have taken him for the victor in a contest!

Spokesman Jones gulped. “We came--we was intending--but this
hoop-te-doo--”

Usial beamed blandly and helped out Mr. Jones's efforts to express his
intentions. “Yes, Brother Jones, it was quite a shower while it lasted.
What were you intending to do?”

“Ask you to take the nomination for the legislature.”

The crowd indorsed the request with _viva-voce_ enthusiasm.

“I certainly will. I am pleased and proud,” declared Usial.

Through the circle of men came Prophet Elias, his robe trailing on his
heels. He stood beside Usial and faced the bystanders. He proclaimed,
“'Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through Him that
loved us.'”

Somebody handed to Mr. Jones his whip and he inspected it carefully. “Of
course, there's more than one way of fighting a man--and I have my own
notions--but maybe I'm wrong.”

“Eli has observed many a dog-fight,” Squire Hexter remarked; “and, so
far as he sees, the attacking dog doesn't get much out of the fracas
except a ripped ear and a raw reputation in the neighborhood.” He
marched to Vaniman, took that perturbed young man by the arm, and said
that Xoa would be waiting supper.



CHAPTER VII

SQUARED OFF AND ALL SET

As Squire Hexter and Vaniman walked on together the notary deferred
comment on the recent happenings, as if he hoped that the cashier would
open up on the topic. But Frank was grimly silent.

Therefore the Squire broke the ice. “What kind of a partner does
Tasp Britt make in a polka, son? I saw you and him going at it pretty
briskly.”

“I stopped him from making a fool of himself.”

“Quite a contract, boy! Quite a contract! And when you got to the matter
of his purple whiskers and his lamp-mat hair--”

“I said nothing to Mr. Britt on such a ridiculous topic--certainly not,
sir!”

“And yet you brag that you have stopped him from making a fool of
himself,” purred the Squire. “Tut! Tut! He's worse than ever. I heard
him tell you that you're discharged from the bank.”

“Yes, I heard him, too!”

“I didn't catch what you answered back.”

“I told him I should ask the directors to decide that matter.”

“Quite right! You're sure of one vote for your side--that's mine! And
I think that when President Britt considers that he has no other charge
against you except that you took away a horsewhip that he was using not
wisely but too well--”

“I struck him across the mouth.”

“Oh, I missed that,” said the Squire, regretfully. “Why the pat?”

“I could not express my feelings in any other way. As to what those
feelings were and why he stirred them, I'll have to ask you to excuse
me, Squire Hexter. If I were going to stay in the bank I would explain
the matter to you and to the directors. But I'm going to resign. Under
these conditions, nobody has the right to tear the heart out of me and
stick it up for a topic of conversation.”

The Squire glanced sideways at the convulsed face of the cashier and
opened his eyes wide; but he promptly hid his wonderment and checked
an exclamation that sounded like a question. “I reckon all of us better
wait till morning, son--Tasper and you and I and all the rest.” He
looked up at the bright stars in a hard sky. “A snappy night like this
will cool things off considerable.”

“I'll wait till morning, sir! Then I propose to resign,” Frank insisted.

“Don't say anything like that in front of Xoa,” pleaded Squire Hexter.
“I don't ever want to see again on her face the look she wore when she
followed our own Frank to the cemetery; now that she has sort of adopted
you, boy, I'm afraid she'll have the same look if she had to follow you
to Ike Jones's stage.”

The supper was waiting, as the Squire had predicted; but he took no
chances on sitting at table at once and having her keen woman's eyes
survey Vaniman's somber face; he feared that her solicitude would open
up a dangerous topic.

“Leave your biscuits in for a few minutes, Mother,” the Squire urged.
“Let's have some literature for an appetizer.”

So he sat down and read the brotherly tribute in the new issue of _The
Hornet_, and Xoa's eyes glistened behind her spectacles, though she
decorously deplored the heat of the sting dealt by Usial. Frank,
watching her efforts to hide mirth and display womanly concern at this
distressing affair between brothers, forgot some of his own troubles in
his amusement. Therefore the Squire's tactics were successful, and the
talk at the supper table over the hot biscuits and the cold chicken and
the damson preserves was concerned merely with the characters of the
brothers Britt. Squire Hexter did mention, casually, that Frank had
succeeded in inducing Tasper to stop whipping Usial. Xoa reached and
patted the young man's arm and blessed him with her eyes.

Frank, as usual, helped Xoa to clear away the supper things. Early in
his stay he had been obliged to beg for permission to do it, and she
had consented at last when he pleaded that it made him feel less like a
boarder in the Hexter home.

While she finished her work in the kitchen Vaniman sat with the
Squire in front of the fireplace and smoked his pipe, but not with his
customary comfort; the tobacco seemed to be as bitter as his ponderings;
he was trying to stiffen his resolution to go away from Egypt.

Squire Hexter chatted. It was hard to keep off the Britt affair, but the
notary tactfully kept away from the sore center of it.

“It has been going on a long time--the trouble between 'em, son. For two
men who look alike outside, they're about as different inside as any two
I've ever known. Tasper has been all for grab! He grabbed away Usial's
share of the home place and then he grabbed Mehitable Dole while she
was keeping company with Usial. I suppose Hittie reckoned there was no
choice in outside looks, but saw considerable inducement in the home
place. Plenty of other women for Usial! Yes! But I can't help thinking
that I might be keeping bach hall in my law office if I hadn't got hold
of Xoa in my young days. So there's Usial! Right in his rut because he's
the kind that stays in a rut. Pegs shoes days and reads books nights. No
telling how the legislature may develop him. Glad he's going.”

The Squire rapped out his pipe ashes against an andiron. His posture
gave him an opportunity to say what he said next without meeting
Vaniman's gaze. “Vona Harnden was a mighty smart girl when she was
teaching school. I was superintendent and had a chance to know. Does she
take hold well in the bank?”

Vaniman had hard work to make his affirmative sound casual.

“Have you met Joe, her father, since you've been in town?”

“No, sir.”

“Not surprising, and no great loss. Joe is on the jump a lot--geniusing
around the country. Joe's a real genius.”

The young man looked straight into the fire and returned no comment. He
knew well the dry quality of Hexter's satirical humor and perceived that
the notary was indulging in that humor.

“Yes, Joe Harnden is quite an operator, son. Jumps, as I have said. A
good optimist. Jumps up so high every day that he can see over all the
bothersome hills into the Promised Land of Plenty. Only trouble is that
Joe's jumping apparatus is so geared that he only jumps straight up and
lands back in the same place. Now, if only he could jump ahead.”

Xoa had come in from the kitchen and was setting out a small table on
which the pachisi board was ready for the evening's regular recreation.
She broke in with protest. “Amos, you shouldn't make fun of the
neighbors!”

“I'm complimenting Joe Harnden,” the Squire went on, with serenity. “I'm
saying that when he uses that inventive genius of his on his own jumping
gear he'll leap ahead and make good. For instance, son, here's an
example. Joe invented an anti-stagger shoe--a star-shaped shoe--to
be let out at saloons and city clubs like they lend umbrellas for a
fee--and then the reformers went and passed that prohibition law. Always
a little behind with a grand notion--that's the trouble with Joe!”

“Amos, you're making up that yarn about a shoe!” declared Xoa.

“Well, if it wasn't an anti-stagger shoe, it was--oh--something,”
 insisted the Squire. “At any rate, Joe was in my office to-day. He's
home again. He's all cheered up. He is taking town gossip for face
value.” The notary looked away from Vaniman and gave his wife an
ingenuous glance. “Of course, I don't need to remind you, Xoa, speaking
of gossip, that the folks will have it that Tasp Britt has put on that
war paint so as to go on the trail of a Number Two. And Joe says that,
in picking Vona, Britt has picked right. Joe's a genius in inventing.
I'm expecting that he'll now invent a lie about himself or Britt or
somebody else to make that girl either sorry enough or mad enough to
carry out what gossip is predicting.”

Xoa had seated herself at the small table and was vigorously rattling
the dice in one of the boxes by way of a hint to the laggard menfolks.
“Women have a soft side, and men come up on that side and take
advantage--and Joe Harnden's mealy mouth has always served him well
with his womenfolks--but I do hope Vona Harnden has got done being
fool enough to galley-slave and sacrifice for the rest of her life,”
 sputtered the dame. “Britt for her? Fs-s-sh!” Her hiss of disgust was
prolonged. Then she rattled the dice more vigorously.

“It's a mighty good imitation of a--diamond-backed rattler, mother! But
come on over to the table, son! She isn't as dangerous as she sounds!”
 The Squire dragged along his chair.

Vaniman leaped from his seat with a suddenness that was startling in
that interior where peace prevailed and composure marked all acts. For
the first time in his stay in the Hexter home his mood fought with the
serenity of the place. The prospect of that bland contest with disks
and dice was hateful, all of a sudden. His rioting feelings needed
room--air--somehow there seemed to be something outside that he ought to
attend to.

“Dear folks, let me off for to-night,” he pleaded. “It's been a hard day
for me--in the bank--I'm nervous--I think a walk will do me good.”

He rushed into the hallway without waiting for any reply. He put on his
cap and finished pulling on his overcoat when he was outside the house.
His first impulse was to stride away from the village--go out along the
country road to avoid the men who scowled at him as Britt's right-hand
servitor.

But he noted that some kind of tumult seemed to be going on in the
village--and any kind of tumult fitted the state of his emotions right
then. He hurried toward the tavern.

Up and down the street men were marching, to and fro before Usial's
shop. Vaniman saw tossing torches and the light revealed that some of
the marchers wore oilcloth capes, evidently relics of some past and gone
political campaign when parades were popular.

There was music, of a sort. A trombone blatted--there was the staccato
tuck of a snare drum, and the boom of a bass drum came in with
isochronal beats.

Vaniman went to the tavern porch and stood there with other onlookers.

“Give Ike Jones half a chance with that old tramboon of his and he ain't
no slouch as a musicianer,” remarked Landlord Files to the young man. “I
hope Egypt is waking up to stay so.”

“If we keep on, the town will get to be lively enough to suit even a
city chap like you are,” said another citizen. “Hope you're going to
stay with us!” But there was no cordiality in that implied invitation;
that there was malice which hoped to start something was promptly
revealed. “In spite of what is reported about Tasp Britt firing you out
of your job!” sneered the man.

The morrow held no promise for Vaniman, no matter what the Squire had
said in the way of reassurance. To stay with Britt in that bank would
be intolerable punishment. He decided that he might as well talk back
to Egypt as Egypt deserved to be talked to, considering what line of
contumely had been passed in through that bank wicket. He was obliged
to speak loudly in order to be heard over the trombone and the drums.
Therefore, everybody in the crowd got what he said; he was young, deeply
stirred, and he had held back his feelings for a long time. “I'm going
to leave this God-forsaken, cat-fight dump just as soon as I can make my
arrangements to get away. Good night!”

He was ashamed of himself the moment that speech was out of his mouth.
He was so much ashamed that he immediately became afraid he would
be moved to apologize; and he was also ashamed to apologize. He was,
therefore, suffering from a peculiar mixture of emotions, and realized
that fact, and hurried off before his tongue could get him into any
worse scrape.

He suddenly felt an impulse to get back to sanity by a talk with Vona.
He had never called at her home. He knew his Egypt all too well--short
as his stay had been! A call on a young woman by a young man was always
construed by gossip as a process of courtship--and until that day Frank
had been keeping his feelings hidden even from Vona herself.

But, having definitely decided to leave the town, he was in a mood to
put aside considerations of caution in regard to their mutual affairs,
for one evening, at any rate. He was moved also by the reflection that
her father was at home--and the Squire and Xoa had dropped broad hints
as to that gentleman's methods of operation with his womenkind. Vaniman
possessed youth's confidence in his ability to make good in the world.
He wondered if it would not be well to have a general show-down in the
Harnden family, in order that when he went away from Egypt he might go
with the consolation of knowing that Vona was waiting for him, her love
sanctioned.

Pondering, he arrived in front of Egypt's humble town hall. Young folks
were coming out of the door. He remembered then! For some weeks they
had been rehearsing a drama to be presented on the eve of Washington's
Birthday, and Vona had the leading role; she had employed him at slack
times in the bank to hold the script and prompt her in her lines.

He saw her and stopped, and she hastened to him. “I suppose a political
parade on Broadway wouldn't break up a rehearsal, Frank. But that's what
has happened in this case. Not one of us could keep our minds on what we
were saying.”

“I'm not surprised. Any noise of an evening in this place, except an owl
hooting, is a cause for hysterics.”

She walked on at his side. “You're disgusted with our poor old town,”
 she said, plaintively.

“I'm going to leave. Do you blame me?”

“I've heard about the--whatever it was!”

“That's right! Leave it unnamed--whatever it was!”

She touched his arm timidly. “Please be kind--to me--no matter how much
cause you have to dislike others here.”

He stopped, put his arms about her, and drew her into a close embrace.
There were shadows of buildings where they stood; no one was near.

“I can't do my best here, Vona. You understand it. But I can't go away
and do the best that's in me unless I go with your pledge to me.”

“You have it, Frank! The pledge of all my love.”

“But your folks! They tell me your father is at home.”

“I have said nothing to father and mother--naturally.” She smiled up
at him. “I have never had any occasion to say anything to them about my
loving anybody, because that matter has never come up till now.”

“I am going home with you,” he said, grimly, and drew her along, his arm
linked in hers.

“If you think it is advisable for me to talk with father and mother,
I'll do it--I'll do it to-night,” she volunteered, courageously.

“Vona, I never want to feel again as I did this afternoon when I allowed
you to go alone on an errand that concerned us both. After this, I'm
going to stand up, man fashion, and do the talking for the two of us.”



CHAPTER VIII

TWO AGAINST THE FIELD

Mr. Harnden had not had a bit of trouble late that afternoon in securing
a promise from Tasper Britt to give him audience and view the plans and
specifications of Mr. Harnden's latest invention. In fact, the consent
had been secured so easily that Mr. Harnden, freshly arrived in town on
Ike Jones's stage, and having heard no Egypt gossip during a prolonged
absence from home, had blinked at Britt with the air of a man who had
expected to find a door held against him, had pushed hard, and had
tumbled head over heels when nothing opposed him.

Mr. Harnden went out on the street and put himself in the way of hearing
some gossip. Then he went directly back into Britt's office and shook
hands with the money king, giving Mr. Britt an arch look which suggested
that Mr. Harnden knew a whole lot that he was not going to talk about
right then. He said, ascribing the idea to second thought, that it might
be cozier and handier to view the plans at the Harnden home. Mr. Britt
agreed with a heartiness that clinched the hopes which gossip had given
Mr. Harnden. The father causally said he supposed, of course, that Vona
had gone home long before from the bank, and he watched Mr. Britt's
expression when the banker replied to a question as to how she was
getting on with her work.

“Yes, siree, she's a smart girl,” corroborated the father, “and I have
always impressed on her mind that some day she was bound to rise high
and get what she deserves to have. Come early, Tasper, and we'll make a
pleasant evening of it.”

Mr. Britt went early, but not early enough to catch Vona before she left
for the rehearsal.

Although it had been particularly easy to get Mr. Britt to come to
the house, Mr. Harnden was not finding it easy to hold his prospective
backer's attention. The patent project under consideration was what the
inventor called “a duplex door,” designed to keep kitchen odors from
dining rooms. Mr. Harnden had a model of the apparatus. With his
forefinger he kept tripping the doors, showing how a person's weight
operated the contrivance, shutting the doors behind and simultaneously
opening the doors in front; but Mr. Harnden did not draw attention to
the palpable fact that a waiter would need to have the agility of a flea
to escape being swatted in the rear or banged in the face.

Mr. Britt watched the model's operations with lackluster eyes; he seemed
to be looking through the little doors and at something else that was
not visible to the inventor.

Mr. Harnden was short and roly-poly, with a little round mouth and big
round eyes, and a curlicue of topknot that he wagged in emphasis as a
unicorn might brandish his horn. Mr. Harnden considered that he was a
good talker. He was considerably piqued by Britt's apparent failure to
get interested, although the banker was making considerable of an effort
to return suitable replies when the inventor pinned him to answers.

“Suppose I go over the whole plan again, from the start,” suggested
Harnden.

“Joe, Mr. Britt looks real tired,” protested Mrs. Harnden from the
chimney corner. Her querulous tone fitted her lackadaisical looks; her
house dress had too many flounces on it; she had a paper-covered novel
in her hand.

“Yes, I _am_ tired,” declared Britt, mournfully. “Sort of worn out and
all discouraged. I feel terribly alone in this world.”

“Too bad!” Mrs. Harnden cooed her sympathy, affectedly.

“And I've been through hell's torments in the last few hours,” declared
Britt; ire succeeded his dolor.

“You must try and forget how those ingrates have abused you, Mr. Britt.
This is a beautiful story I have just finished. You must take it with
you and read it. The love sentiment is simply elegant. And it speaks of
the sheltering walls of the home making a haven for the wounded heart. I
hope you have found this home a haven to-night.” She rose and crossed to
him and laid the novel in his hands.

Mr. Harnden shoved his own hands into his trousers pockets, throwing
back his coat from his comfortable frontal convexity. He presented
a sort of full-rigged effect--giving the appearance of one of those
handy-Jack “Emergency Eddies” who make personal equipment a fad: the
upper pockets of his waistcoat bristled with pencils and showed the
end of a folded rule and some calipers. He had all sorts of chains
disappearing into various pockets--chains for keys and knife and cigar
cutter and patent light. “Tasper,” he advised, briskly, “seeing that
you're now in a happy haven, as the wife says, why waste time and temper
on this town? The only reason why I have kept my home here is because
the town is solid rock and makes a good jumping-off place for me; I can
get a firm toe hold. Why do you bother with a dinky office like the one
you started out for? With your money and general eminence you can be the
Governor of our state. Sure! I know all the men in this state. I've made
it my business to know 'em. Let me be your manager and I'll make you
Governor like”--Mr. Harnden yanked out one hand and tripped the doors
of the model with a loud snap--“like that! Open goes the door to
honors--bang goes the door against enemies!”

Mr. Britt glanced at the title of the story in his hands--_The Flowers
Along Life's Pathway_--and perked up a bit as if he saw an opportunity
to pluck some of those flowers. But when Mr. Harnden went on to say that
politics was not as expensive--with the right manager--as some folks
supposed, Mr. Britt exhibited gloomy doubt. “A home is about all I have
in mind right now,” he declared. “A man has got to have a happy home
before his mind is free for big plans.”

“My experience exactly!” stated Mr. Harnden, graciously indicating with
a wave of the hand the happy home which he rarely graced. “And knowing
what I do about the help a good home gives an enterprising man, you've
got my full co-operation in your efforts, Tasper.”

They heard the hall door open.

“It's Vona,” announced Mrs. Harnden. She beamed on Britt. “I wonder why
the dear girl is coming home so early.”

The caller's face lighted up with the effect of an arc lamp going into
action.

But when the sitting-room door opened and Vona escorted Vaniman in ahead
of her, Britt's illuminated expression instantly became the red glare of
rage instead of the white light of hope. He leaped to his feet.

The situation made for embarrassment of overwhelming intensity; there
was no detail of the affair in front of Usial's cot that had not been
canvassed by every mouth in Egypt, including the mouths of the Harnden
home.

Vaniman made the first move. He bowed to Mrs. Harnden; he knew the
mother; she had called on Vona in the bank. “May I meet your father?” he
asked the girl.

Vona presented him, recovering her composure by the aid of Frank's
steadiness.

“How-de-do!” said Mr. Harnden, stiffly. He did not ask the caller to be
seated. Vona gave the invitation. While Vaniman hesitated, the master
of the household had a word to say, putting on his best business air.
“Ordinarily, young man, the latchstring of my home is out and the boys
and the girls are welcome here to make merry in a sociable way.” Mr.
Harnden was distinctly patronizing, with an air that put Frank into
the intruding-urchin class. “But it so happens that this evening Banker
Britt has seized the opportunity of my being in town and he and I are in
close conference regarding an important matter in the investment line.
You'll excuse us, I'm sure.”

It was certainly no moment to go tilting in the field of Love, and
Frank, though undaunted, was deferential; and he was compelled to
recognize the father's rights as master of the household. He bowed and
turned to leave, carefully keeping his eyes off Britt.

But Vona had her word to say then; her foot was on the hearth of home;
she had that advantage over Frank. Moreover, she was moved by the
instinct of self-protection; she did not relish the notion of being left
alone with that trio.

“We can kindle a fire in the front room, father!”

“There hasn't been a fire in that room all winter, dear girl.” Mrs.
Harnden's protest was sweetly firm. “No one shall run the chance of
catching a cold.”

“Exactly! It's tricky weather, and we must be careful of our guests,”
 agreed Mr. Harnden. “Call again, young sir!”

“I will,” stated Vaniman. He turned and addressed Vona. “The little
matter will take no harm if it's postponed till to-morrow,” he told her.
His gaze was tender--and the girl looked up at him with an expression
which even a careless observer would have found telltale. Britt's vision
was sharpened by such jealous venom that he would have misconstrued even
innocent familiarity. He had been struggling with his passion ever since
Vaniman had appeared, escorting the girl in from the night where the two
had been alone together. Age's ugly resentment at being supplanted by
youth was sufficiently provocative in this case where Britt ardently
longed, and had promised himself what he desired; but to that
provocation was added the stinging memory of the blow dealt that day
by Youth's hand across Age's withered mouth; he licked the swollen lips
with a rabid tongue. He beheld the two young folks exchanging looks that
gave to their simple words an import which roused all his fury. Britt
shook himself free from all restraint. He had been assured by the
Harndens that their home was his haven; he took advantage of that
assurance and of the young man's more dubious standing in the household.

Britt was holding to the paper-covered novel--it was doubled in his
ireful grip and its title showed plainly above his ridged hand--a
particularly infelicitous title it seemed to be under the circumstances,
because Britt was shaking the book like a cudgel and his demeanor was
that of a man who was clutching thorns instead of flowers. He advanced
on Frank and his voice made harsh clamor in the little room. “You'd
better not take on any more engagements for to-morrow, Vaniman. You'll
be mighty busy with me, winding up our business together.”

“Very well, sir. And suppose we leave off all matters between us until
then!”

But Britt had started to run wild and was galloping under the whip of
fury. He had been doing some amazing things that day--he had written
verse, he had blubbered foolishly with a girl looking on, and he had
horsewhipped his twin brother before the eyes of the populace--but what
he did next was more amazing than all the rest. Having sourly admitted
to himself that he was a coward when he was alone with the girl, he
took advantage of this moment when his choleric desperation gave him
fictitious courage. He slashed into the situation with what weapons he
had at hand--and he held a reserve weapon, so he thought, in the big
wallet that thrust its bulk reassuringly against his breast. “This thing
seems to have come to a climax; and it ain't through any fault of mine.
I've never yet been afraid to talk for myself, in a climax, and I ain't
afraid now. The time to do business is when you've got your interested
parties assembled--and the five folks in this room--the whole five--may
not be collected together again,” he stated, with vengeful significance,
looking hard at Vaniman. Then he whirled on the girl. “Vona, I want to
marry you. You know it. Your folks know it. It's all understood, even if
it hasn't been put into words. I'll give you everything that money will
buy. When you get me you know what you're getting. I put the question to
you right here and now, before your home folks, and that shows you what
kind of a square man I am. I don't sneak in dark corners.” He accused
her escort with a glowering side-glance.

Mrs. Harnden simpered.

Vona had never found her mother an especially stable support in times of
stress, but the girl did feel that the maternal spirit might arise and
help in an emergency as vital as that one! Mrs. Harnden, however,
was gazing into the arena and was blandly indicating by her demeanor,
“Thumbs down!”

Then the girl appealed to her father, mutely eager; denied sympathy, she
was asking for protection. But Mr. Harnden was distinctly not extending
protection. He was looking at Mr. Britt. By avoiding what he knew the
girl was asking for with all her soul in her eyes, Mr. Harnden was
indulging his consistent selfishness; he hated to be worried by the
troubles of others; others' woes placed brambles on the pathway of his
optimism.

“Tasper, you have certainly jumped the Harnden family--jumped us
complete! You can't expect a girl to get her voice back right away. But
I suppose it's up to me to speak for the family.”

Vaniman stepped into the center of the room. “I suppose so, too, Mr.
Harnden. I'll confess that I came into your house this evening with that
idea in my mind.”

Now the girl had eyes only for the one whom she recognized as her
real champion; those eyes would have inspired a knight to any sort of
derring-do, Frank was telling himself.

“That being agreed, I'll speak,” stated Mr. Harnden, throwing back his
coat lapels and displaying all his pencil quills.

“Just one moment, sir, till I have shown that Mr. Britt has no monopoly
on courage--seeing that he has put invasion of a quiet home on that
plane. I love your daughter. I want her for my wife. I came here to tell
you so; but I was putting politeness ahead of my anxiety after you told
me that you were engaged.”

“Harnden, that man hasn't a cent in the world,” Britt declared. “He
sends away every sou markee he can spare from his salary. He buys checks
from me. I can show 'em.” Out came Britt's big wallet; he threw down the
paper-covered novel.

“I support my mother and I'm putting my young sister through school,”
 admitted the cashier. “Mr. Britt is right. But every time I buy one of
his checks I buy a lot of honest comfort for myself.”

“I think, young man, that the Harnden family better not interfere with
the comfort of the Vaniman family,” averred the father, loftily. “I'd
hate to think I was a party to taking bread from the mouths of a mother
and a sister. I'm sure Vona feels the same way.”

“Certainly!” supplemented Mrs. Harnden. “I understand a woman's feelings
in such a matter.”

“Furthermore, I have discharged Vaniman for good and sufficient
reasons,” said President Britt. “He stands there busted and without a
job.”

“That is quite true,” Vaniman admitted. “I cannot remain with the Egypt
Trust Company, but that's a matter quite of my own choice.”

“Oh, it is, is it?” scoffed the president.

“Yes, sir! I've had quite enough of your society.”

“Therefore, it seems to me that there isn't much more to be said--not
here--in a home that we try to make peaceful and happy at all times,”
 said Mr. Harnden, pompously.

“But there's something more I'm going to say!” Britt was proceeding with
malice in tones and mien. He had been waving the canceled checks. He
pulled another paper from the wallet. “You think the directors would
keep you on in that job, do you, Vaniman, if you forced the issue?”

“I do! Jealousy and petty spite would not show up very strong in a board
meeting, Mr. Britt.”

Britt shook the paper. “How would this show up?”

Vaniman did not lose his composure. “Why don't you read it aloud? You
have stirred curiosity in Mr. and Mrs. Harnden, I see.”

“And I'll stir something else in a girl you're trying to fool! But I'm
gong to save this letter for that board meeting; I'll have you fired by
a regular vote--and I'll send the record of that vote to every bank in
this part of the country. Then see how far you'll get with your lies
about my jealousy!” Britt was plainly determined to allow guesswork to
deal in the blackest construction regarding the letter.

Vaniman turned his back on the others. He talked directly to Vona. The
agonized query in her eyes demanded a reply from him. “Mr. Britt has in
his hand a letter from some banking friend of his. The letter says that
my father was sentenced to the penitentiary, charged with embezzlement.
That is so. My father died there. But it was wicked injustice. You and
your father and mother are entitled to know that an honest man was made
a scapegoat.”

“Excuse me!” broke in Harnden. “We are outsiders and will probably
remain so, and have no hankering to pry into family matters.”

“I did not intend to tell the story now, Mr. Harnden. It's too sacred
a matter to be discussed in the presence of that man who stands there
trying to make a club of the thing to ruin my hopes and my life. This is
a hateful situation. I apologize. But he has forced me to speak out, as
I have done, telling you and your wife of my love for Vona.”

“I don't see how you dare to speak of it, seeing what the circumstances
are,” declared the father; there was a murmur of corroboration from the
mother.

“It's a cheeky insult to all concerned,” shouted Britt.

“No, it's my best attempt to be honest and open and a man,” insisted
Vaniman. “I have left no chance for gossip to bring tales to you, Mr.
Harnden.”

But Mr. Harnden sliced the air with a hand that sought to sever further
conference. “Absolutely impossible, young man.”

“Vona's prospects must not be ruined by anybody's selfishness,” stated
Mrs. Harnden.

In his eagerness, encouraged by this parental backing, Mr. Britt did
not employ a happy metaphor. “It has been my rule, in the case of bitter
medicine, to take it quick and have the agony over with.” He put all the
appeal he could muster into his gaze at Vona. “That's why I have sprung
the thing this evening, on the spur of the moment. I ain't either young
or handsome, Vona. I know my shortcomings. But I've got everything to
make you happy; all you've got to do is turn around and take me as your
husband and make me and your folks happy, too.”

Mr. Harnden's optimism bobbed up with its usual serenity. “We're making
a whole lot out of a little, come to think it over!” He turned to Vona,
feeling that he was fortified against any appeal he might find in her
eyes.

In the silence that she had imposed on herself while her champion was
battling she had been gathering courage, piling up the ammunition of
resolution. Love lighted her eyes and flung out its signal banners of
challenge on her cheeks.

“Why, our girl has never said that she is in love with anybody,” prated
the father.

“I'll say it now, when there's a good reason for saying it,” cried the
girl, her tones thrilling the listeners. “I'll say it in my own way to
the one who is entitled to know, and you may listen, father and mother!”

She went to Frank, stretching her hands to him, and he took them in
his grasp. “I understand! I can wait,” she told him. “And when the time
comes and you call to me, I'll say, as Ruth said, 'Entreat me not to
leave thee, or to return from following after thee; for whither thou
goest, I will go; and where thou lodgest, I will lodge; thy people shall
be my people, and thy God my God.'” Impulsively, heeding only him, she
threw her arms around his neck and kissed him. Then she ran from the
room.

And finding the light gone out of the place, Frank groped to the door,
like a blind man feeling his way, and departed.



CHAPTER IX

THE NIGHT BROUGHT COUNSEL

Mr. Britt, left with the father and mother, got his voice first because
he had been pricked most deeply; furthermore, the girl's method of
expression had touched him on the spot which had been abraded by Prophet
Elias's daily rasping.

The suitor drove his fist down on the center table with a force that
caused the model of Mr. Harnden's doors to jump and snap. “By the
joo-dinged, hump-backed Hosea, I've just about got to my limit in this
text business!”

“The dear girl is all wrought up. She don't realize what she's saying.
I'll run up to her room and reason with her. Don't mind what a girl says
in a tantrum, Mr. Britt,” Mrs. Harnden pleaded.

Mr. Britt, left with the father, began to stride back and forth across
the room. The title of the book jeered up at him from the carpet where
he had tossed the volume; he kicked the book under the table.

“The wife said a whole lot just now,” affirmed Mr. Harnden, soothingly.
“Consider where the girl has been this evening, Tasper! Off elocuting
dramatic stuff! Comes back full of high-flown nonsense. Gets off
something that was running in her head. Torched on by that fly-by-night
who'll be getting out of town and who'll be forgotten inside a week.
Where's your optimism?” He reached up and slapped Britt's back when the
banker passed him.

“She is in love with him,” complained the suitor; his anger was
succeeded by woe; his face “squizzled” as if he were about to weep a
second time that day.

“Piffle! She's a queer girl if she didn't have the usual run of childish
ailments, along with the whooping cough and the measles. I have always
known how to manage my womenfolks, Tasper. Not by threats and by
tumulting around as you have been doing! You've got a lot to learn.
Listen to me!”

Mr. Britt paused and blinked and listened.

Mr. Harnden plucked out a pencil and made believe write a screed on the
palm of his hand while he talked. “'By the twining tendrils of their
affections you can sway 'em to and fro,' as the poet said, speaking of
women. I am loved in my home. I have important prospects, now that you
are backing me.”

Mr. Britt blinked more energetically, but he did not dispute.

“Another poet has said that's it's all right to lie for love's sake--or
words to that effect. I know the right line of talk to give Vona. And
I won't have to lie such a great lot to make her know how bad off I am
right now. She has always had a lot of sympathy for me,” declared Mr.
Harnden, complacently. “I may as well cash in on it. She won't ruin a
loving father and a happy home when she wakes up after a good cry on the
wife's shoulder and gets her second wind and understands where she's at
in this thing. Tasper, you sit down there in a comfortable chair and let
me rub on some optimism anodyne where you're smarting the worst.”

When Mrs. Harnden came into the room a half hour later she looked
promptly relieved to find Mr. Britt in such a calm mood; when she had
hurried out he was acting as if he were intending to kick the furniture
about the place.

“A good cry--and all at peace, eh?--and a new view of things in the
morning?” purred the optimist in the way of query.

“She didn't cry,” reported the mother, with a disconsolateness that did
not agree with the cheering words of the reports.

“Oh, very well,” remarked Mr. Harnden, optimism unspecked. “That shows
she is taking a common-sense view and is using her head. What says she?”

“I may as well post you on how the matter stands, Mr. Britt. By being
honest all 'round we can operate together better.”

Britt agreed by an emphatic nod.

After an inhalation which suggested the charging of an air gun, Mrs.
Harnden pulled the verbal trigger. “Vona says she is all through at the
bank.”

“Oh, I know my girl,” said Mr. Harnden, airily. “I'll handle her when
morning's light is bright, and forgotten is the night!”

“I thought I knew my girl, too,” the mother declared, gloomily. “But I
guess I don't. I never saw her stiffen up like this before. She sat
and looked at me, and I felt like a cushion being jabbed by a couple of
hatpins--if there's any such thing as a cushion having feelings.”
 Mrs. Harnden, settling her flounces, a soft and sighing example of “a
languishing Lydia,” was as unfortunate in her metaphor as Britt had been
when he mentioned a bitter medicine.

“Tell her that I'll pay her ten dollars more a week,” said President
Britt, looking desperate. “She mustn't leave me in the lurch.”

“She'll do it! Nothing to worry about!” affirmed the father. “And I'll
grab in as cashier till my bigger projects get started. I've got a
natural knack for handling money, Tasper.”

The banker winced.

“We can make it all snug, right in the family,” insisted Harnden.
He jumped up, opened the door into the hallway, and called. He kept
calling, his tones growing more emphatic, till the girl replied from
abovestairs.

“She's coming down,” reported the general manager of the household,
taking his stand in front of the fireplace. He pulled on a chain and
dragged out a bunch of keys and whirled them like a David taking aim
with a sling.

Vona came no farther than the doorway, and stood framed there.

“What's this last nonsense--that you won't go to your work in the
morning?”

“Your pay is raised ten dollars a week, starting to-morrow,”
 supplemented Britt, appealingly.

But there was no compromise in the girl's mien. “Mr. Britt, I realize
perfectly well that I ought to give you due notice--the usual two weeks.
That would be the honorable business way. But you have set the example
of disregarding business methods, in your treatment of Mr. Vaniman. You
mustn't blame others for doing as you're doing. Therefore I positively
will not come into the bank, as conditions are. As I feel to-night I
shall feel to-morrow! If you, or my father and mother, think you can
change my mind on the matter, you'll merely waste your arguments.”

That time she did not run away. She surveyed them in turn, leisurely
and perfectly self-possessed. Even the optimist recognized inflexibility
when he was bumped against it hard enough! She stepped backward,
challenging reply, but they were silent, and she went upstairs.

“Still, nobody knows what the morning may bring forth,” persisted
Harnden, after waiting for somebody else to speak. “As I have said, I
have a knack--”

“Of blowing up paper bags and listening to 'em bust!” snarled the
banker, permitting himself, at least, to express his real opinion of
a man whom he had always held to be an impractical nincompoop. “If you
count cash the way you count chickens before they're hatched, you'd make
a paper bag out of my bank. I'll bid you good night!”

He wrenched away from Harnden's restraining hands and shook himself
under the shower of the optimist's pattering words, as a dog would
shake off rain. In the hall he pulled on his overcoat and turned up the
collar, for the words still pattered. He went out into the night and
slammed the door.

Britt began his program of general anathema by shaking his fist at the
Harnden house after he had reached the street. He shook his fist at the
other houses along the way as he went tramping in the middle of the road
toward his home. He even brandished his fist at his own statue in the
facade of Britt Block. The moonlight revealed the complacent features;
the cocky pose of serene confidence presented by the effigy affected the
disheartened original with as acute a sense of exasperation as he would
have felt if the statue had set thumb to nose and had wriggled the stone
fingers in impish derision.

“Gid-dap” Jones and a few citizens who could not make up their minds to
go to bed till they had sucked all the sweetness out of an extraordinary
evening in Egypt, were walking up and down the tavern porch, cooling
off. Mr. Britt, tramping past, shook his fist at them, too.

“Hope you enjoyed the music!” suggested Jones, wrought up to a pitch
where he would not be bull-dozed even by “Phay-ray-oh.”

“Yes, and I hope we'll have some more to-morrow night,” retorted the
banker. “You still have the poorhouse, the cattle pound, and the lockup
to serenade.”

“All right! Which one of 'em do you expect to be in?” inquired Jones.
“We wouldn't have you miss a tune for the world!”

When Britt arrived in the shadows of his own porch he stood and looked
out over Egypt and cursed the people, in detail and in toto. He had
become a monomaniac. He had set himself to accomplish one fell purpose.

In his office, earlier that day, he had resolved upon revenge; but
his natural caution had served as a leash, and he had pondered on no
definite plans that might prove dangerous. Now only one fear beset
him--the fear that he would not be able to think up and put through a
sufficiently devilish program.

He banged his door behind him and lighted a lamp which he kept on a
stand in the hall. He creaked upstairs in the lonely house. His sense of
loneliness was increased when he reflected that Vona would not be at her
desk in the morning.

The village watchman noted that the reflector lamp shone all night on
the door of the vault in the Egypt Trust Company; it was the watchman's
business to keep track of that light. But he noted also, outside of his
regular business, that there was a light for most of the night in Tasper
Britt's bedroom.



CHAPTER X

THE MAN WHO WAS SORRY

It was a heavy dawn, next day; a thaw had set in and a drizzle of rain
softened the snow; gray clouds trailed their draperies across the top of
Burkett Hill.

Landlord Files had trouble in getting his kitchen fire started--in the
sluggish air the draught was bad. Mr. Files's spirits were as heavy as
the air. He knew it was up to him to be the first man in Egypt to come
in contact with Tasper Britt that morning.

Stage-driver Jones had an early breakfast, for he had to be off with the
mail. Mr. Jones had been up late, for him, and he was grouchy. In the
matter of the warfare on Pharaoh his mood seemed to be less assertive
than it had been the night before. Mr. Files detected that much after
some conversation while the breakfast was served.

“All you have to do is 'gid-dap' and get away,” said Files, sourly. “I
have to stay here on my job and be the first to meet him and get the
brunt of the whole thing. And I condoned, as you might say, and as he'll
probably feel. I let my porch be used for meeting and mobbing, as you
might say. And he ketched me grinning over his shoulder when I read
them heading words after that old lunkhead of a Prophet passed him the
paper.”

“Shut up!” remarked Driver Jones, stabbing a potato.

“I owe him money--and I let my porch be used--”

“Figure out the wear and tear on the planks and pass me the bill. Now
shut up and don't spoil my vittles any morn'n you have done in the way
of cooking 'em.”

Mr. Files, left alone to meet Britt, resolved to hand that tyrant a
partial sop by having breakfast on the table the moment the regular
boarder unfolded his napkin; food might stop Britt's mouth to some
extent, the landlord reflected.

Result of this precautionary courtesy! The breakfast was a mess when
Britt arrived, a half hour late. Mr. Files had depended on his boarder's
invariable punctuality and had been obliged to keep “hotting up” the
food, watching the clock with increasing despair.

Britt smiled on the landlord when they faced each other in the dining
room. The smile made the landlord shiver. He was dreading the explosion.
He set on the viands as timidly as a child holding out peanuts to
an elephant. Mr. Britt beamed blandly and spoke of the change in the
weather and said he was hoping that “Old Reliable Ike wouldn't be
bothered too much by the soft footing on his way to Levant.”

Mr. Files gasped when he heard this consideration expressed for the
ringleader of the evening's demonstration. He recovered sufficiently to
start in on an explanation of the condition of the food.

“It's all right, Files! It's my fault. I overslept.”

Britt ate for a few minutes; then he suspended operations and looked
Files hard in the face; that face, as to mouth, was as widely open as
the countenance of the office alligator. “I did a whole lot of thinking
last night, Files. I'm telling you first, like I propose to tell others
in Egypt as I come in contact with 'em during the day--it has been my
fault--how things have happened! The night brings counsel! Yes, sir, it
surely does.” He went on eating.

“Mr. Britt, I was afraid--”

Pharaoh waved his knife expostulatingly. “I know it, Files! Your face
told me the whole story when I stepped in here. But I'm a changed man.
I know when I'm down. However, it's my own fault, I repeat. I stubbed my
toe over the trigs I had set in the way of my own operations. I deserve
what I'm getting--and the lesson will make me a different man from now
on.”

Mr. Files staggered out into the kitchen in order to be alone with his
thoughts.

Britt spent a longer time than usual in the tavern office after
breakfast; he smoked two cigars, himself, and gave a cigar to each of
the early citizens who dropped in through the front way after they had
received certain information from Files, who excitedly had beckoned
them to come to him at the ell door. Mr. Britt frankly exposed his new
sentiments about living and doing. When he put on his overcoat and went
forth, Prophet Elias popped out of the door of Usial's cot like the
little gowned figure of a toy barometer. Britt waved his hand in
cheerful greeting. “Prophet Elias, hand me that text about the way of
the transgressor being a hard one to travel, and I'll take it in a meek
and lowly spirit and be much obliged.” There was no sarcasm in Britt's
tone; on the contrary, his manner agreed with his profession regarding
meekness. The Prophet swapped stares with Files, who stood in the tavern
door; that Elias was greatly impressed was evident, because he withheld
speech.

That situation had enough drawing power to bring the brother to the
cottage door; he appeared, his spider in his hand.

“Good morning, Usial,” called Tasper. “I own up that you're a convincing
writer. According to your request, you see I'm giving you your right
name. The voters are giving you honors. Who knows what another issue of
_The Hornet_ may get for you?” Britt's tone was one of bluff sincerity.

Egypt's Pharaoh did not seem to be a bit put out because no one replied
to him in this astonishing levee. He descended from the porch and
strolled off toward Britt Block, puffing his cigar.

He found the cashier alone in the bank. Vaniman hastened to put in the
first word. “President Britt, I'm ready to wind up my affairs, and I
hope you see the wisdom in holding our talk strictly to the business in
hand.”

The president walked in past the grille and sat down at the table; by
the mere look he gave the young man Britt succeeded in climaxing the
succession of the morning's surprises; Vaniman had more reason than the
others to be amazed.

“Frank, I'm sorry!” There was wistful fervor in the declaration; for the
first time in their association the president had called the cashier by
his Christian name.

Vaniman had risen from his stool; he sat down again and goggled at
Britt.

“If the two of us begin to apologize, we'll get all snarled up,” went on
the president. “Real men can get down to cases in a better way. I did a
lot of thinking last night; probably you did, too. The hell fire I went
through yesterday would upset any man. To-day I'm scorched and sensible.
I went after something I couldn't get. Just now I don't ask you to stay
here permanently. You can stay right along if you want to, I'll say that
here and now! But if you're bound to go--later--go when you can leave on
the square, after you have broken another man into the job, if you feel
you don't want it. I'll send you away then with my best wishes and a
clean bill! Please don't make me crawl any more'n I'm doing!”

It was an appeal to Youth's hale generosity--and generosity dominated
all the other qualities in Vaniman's nature. “I'll stay, Mr. Britt,” he
blurted. “After what you have said I can't help staying.”

The banker rose and stretched out his hand. “Men can put more into a
grip of the fist than women can into an afternoon of gabble, Frank.”

After the vigorous clasp of palm in palm, Britt had something more to
say. “Vona was terribly stirred up last night, and nobody can blame her.
She served notice on me that she was done in the bank. But she needs
the money and you and I need her help. Go up and ask her to walk back in
here as if nothing had happened. And tell her that what I said about the
raise in her pay holds good.”

“I think you ought to go and tell her, Mr. Britt,” Vaniman demurred.
“And my standing with Mr. and Mrs. Harnden--”

“I guess your standing will be better from now on,” Britt broke in,
twisting his face into a wry smile. “I left Harnden with a hot ear on
him last night! Furthermore, you'll have to ask her. She declared that
if her father or mother or I tried to change her mind about coming back
here we'd be wasting breath. Go on! I'll tend bank.”

When Frank returned with Vona a half hour later the president beamed on
them through the wicket. He immediately left the bank office, giving the
bookkeeper a paternal pat on the shoulder as he passed her, calling her
a good girl. And then the business of the Egypt Trust Company settled
back into its usual routine.

During the day customers came to the wicket with notes sanctioned by the
president's O. K. and his sprawling initials; Mr. Britt did not trouble
himself by consulting the directors in regard to ordinary loans. He was
well settled in his autocracy by virtue of the voting proxies which he
handled for stockholders, although he had only a modest amount of his
own money invested in the stock of the bank. Mr. Britt could use his own
money to better advantage. He was permitted to make a one-man bank
of the Trust Company because nobody in Egypt ventured to dispute his
sapience as a financier.

The customers who came that day were plainly having a hard time of it
in controlling their desire to share some of their emotions with
the cashier. But Vaniman's stolid countenance did not encourage any
confidences.

Some of the repression he exercised in the case of customers extended
to his communion with Vona during the slack times of the business day.
There seemed to be a tacit agreement between them to keep off the topic
of what had happened the night before. Words could not have added to
their understanding of their mutual feelings. That understanding had
established for them the policy of waiting. Though Frank said but little
to the girl about his talk with the president, he imagined he could feel
the tingle of Britt's handclasp as he remembered the look on Britt's
face, and he pitied the old man. To go on, seizing every opportunity to
make love, would seem like “rubbing it in,” Frank told himself. He
also said something of the sort to Vona, and she agreed with an amiable
smile.

And the two of them agreed on one thing, more especially: Tasper Britt
must have had a strange housecleaning of the heart during that vigil in
his home on the hill.

Among other convincing evidences of Britt's transformation was his
treatment of Prophet Elias at the end of that day.

The Prophet did not deliver his usual matutinal taunts in front of
Britt Block. But when he came back from the field in the afternoon, he
returned from conferences with Egyptian skeptics who had not seen Tasper
Britt in his new form, and therefore, perhaps, their assertions had
caused Elias to doubt the evidences of his own senses. At any rate, the
Prophet resolved to put the reform of Pharaoh to the test of texts, and
he raised his voice and declaimed.

Britt came to the front door and mildly entreated the Prophet to walk
in. “I'll be glad to listen to you. Isn't it a good idea to tell me, man
to man, in my office what's wrong with me, instead of standing out there
in the snow, telling the neighborhood?”

The Prophet went in, having first slapped his hand on his breast, urging
action, “'Go in, speak unto Pharaoh, king of Egypt, that he let the
children of Israel go out of his hand.'”

He trudged forth, after a time, and walked along slowly toward Usial's
house, clawing his hand above his ear with the air of a man trying to
solve a perplexing puzzle.



CHAPTER XI

SACKS AND MOUTHS--ALL SEALED

Every now and then the fad of a new trick puzzle--a few bits of twisted
wire, or a stick and a string--will as effectually occupy the time of an
entire community as a cowbell will take up the undivided attention of a
cur, if the bell is hitched to the cur's tail.

The folks of Egypt had a couple of brain-twisters to solve.

What had happened to Tasper Britt?

How did it happen that Cashier Vaniman was holding on to his job?

His townsfolk knew Britt's character pretty well, and they had much food
for speculation in his case.

There were some who ventured the suggestion that Hittie's remonstrating
spirit had come to him in the night watches. Other guesses ran all the
way down the scale of probability to the prosaic belief that Britt had
decided that it was not profitable to go on making a fool of himself. It
was agreed that Britt had a good eye for profit in every line of action;
and it was conceded, even by those who did not believe all that was said
about spiritist influences in these modern days, that if Hittie really
had managed to get at him it was likely that her caustic communications
would knock some of the folly out of him.

Egypt did not know Vaniman, the outlander, very well. Gossip about his
reasons for remaining were mostly all guess-so; the folks got absolutely
nothing from him on the subject. He did not discuss the matter even with
Squire Hexter and Xoa. Frank and Vona had definitely adopted the policy
of waiting, and he resolved to take no chances on having that policy
prejudiced by anybody carrying random stories to Britt, reports that the
cashier had said this or the other.

Vaniman took occasion to reassure Mr. Britt on that point, and the
latter had displayed much gratitude. “If you don't hurt _me_, Frank, I
won't hurt _you_!” Then the usurer's eyes hardened. “Of course I can't
expect you to forget that I threatened to blacken your name in banking
circles. But in our new understanding I guess we can afford to call it a
stand-off.”

“If I were staying here simply to wheedle you into passing me on with
a high testimonial, I'd be playing a selfish game, and that isn't my
attitude, sir. I was anxious to get this job. I felt that I had a right
to stand for myself, on my own honesty. But I shall tell the whole story
the next time I apply for a position. I'm getting to understand big
financiers better,” he added, with bitterness.

“Yes, finance is very touchy on certain points,” admitted the president.
“But I'm glad you're not going to do any more talking here in town.
You're somewhat of a new man here, and you don't know the folks as I
do. I suppose some talk will have to be made as to why you and I are
sticking along together, after you slapped my face in public. You'd
better let me manage the story.”

“You may say what you think is best, Mr. Britt.”

“They're a suspicious lot, the men in this town.” The banker surveyed
Vaniman, making slits of his eyes. “However, I've grown used to all this
recent talk about me being a fool. If it's also said that I'm a fool for
keeping you here, I won't mind it. And you mustn't mind if it's hinted
around that you're hanging on in the bank because you've got private
reasons that you're not talking about.”

The cashier greeted that sentiment with an inquiring frown.

“Oh, don't be nervous, Frank!” Mr. Britt flapped his hand, making light
of the matter. He grinned. “I won't set you out as being the leader of
a robber gang. I'm not like the peaked-billed old buzzards of this
place--bound to say the worst of every stranger. You'd better turn to
and hate the critters here, just as I do.”

Britt's tones rasped when he said that; his feelings were getting
away from him. The young man's expression hinted that he was trying to
reconcile this rancorous mood with Britt's recent declarations of a new
view of life.

“What I really meant to say, Frank, was that such has been my feeling in
the past. I'm trying to change my nature. If I forget and slip once in a
while, don't lay it up against me.”

After that the president and the cashier in their daily conferences
confined their discourse to the business of the bank. Britt got into the
way of asking Vaniman's advice and of deferring to it when it had been
given. “You're running the bank. You know the trick better than I do.”

Therefore, it was perfectly natural for the president to bring up a
topic of the past, a matter where Frank had given advice that had been
scornfully rejected. “I've been thinking over what you said about
that stock of hard money in the vault needing a guard. That fool of a
Stickney has started a lot of gossip, in spite of my warning to him.
There's no telling how far the gossip has spread.”

“That kind of news travels fast, sir.”

Britt showed worry. “Perhaps I undertook too much of a chore for a
little bank like ours. But because we are little and because this town
isn't able to support the bank the way I had hoped, I thought I'd turn
a trick that would net us more of a handy surplus in a modest sort of a
way.”

Britt did not trouble himself to explain to the cashier that, by a
private arrangement with the city broker, the deal would also turn a
neat sum into the pocket of the president of the Egypt Trust Company,
hidden in the charge of “commission and expenses,” split with due regard
to the feelings of broker and president.

“The big fellows are grabbing off twenty-five or thirty per cent in
their foreign money deals,” went on the banker. “Tightening home credits
so as to do it! What's fair for big is fair for little!”

“The profit is attractive, surely,” the cashier stated.

“Our stockholders have honored me right along, and I'd like to show 'em
that I deserve my reputation as a financier. I'm just finicky enough
to want to clean up the last cent there is in it--and that's why I'm
waiting for the right market. We've got to hold on for a few days, at
any rate. But I reckon you feel as I do, that we're taking chances, now
that gossip is flying high!”

“I think the vault should be guarded, Mr. Britt.”

“Any suggestions as to a man?”

“I don't know the men here well enough to choose.”

“And I know 'em so blasted well that I'm in the same box as you are.
They're numbheads.”

The two men sat and looked at each other in silence; the matter seemed
to be hung up right there, like a log stranded on a bank--“jillpoked,”
 as rivermen say.

“There's one way out of it, Frank,” blurted the president. “Nobody cares
when I come or go, nights. I may as well sleep here as in my house, all
alone. I'll have a cot put in the back room.” He pointed to a door in
the rear of the bank office.

Vaniman came forward with instant and eager proffer. “That's a job for
me, Mr. Britt.”

In spite of an effort to seem casual, Britt could not keep significance
out of his tone. “It's too bad to pen a young man up of an evening, when
he can be enjoying himself somewhere.”

“It's because I'm young that I'm insisting, sir.”

“And I suppose I'm so old that no husky robber would be afraid of me,”
 returned Britt, dryly. “So you insist, do you?”

“I do.”

“I must ask you to remember that you're doing it only because you have
volunteered.”

“I'll be glad to have you tell the directors that I volunteered and
insisted.”

“Very well! We'll have the thing understood, Frank. I wouldn't want to
have 'em think I was obliging you to do more than your work as cashier.”

Therefore, Vaniman had a cot brought down from Squire Hexter's house,
and borrowed a double-barreled shotgun from the same source. He did not
consider that his new duty entailed any hardship. He had his evenings
for the pachisi games. Xoa insisted on making a visit to the bank and
putting the back room in shape for the lodger. But she vowed that she
was more than ever convinced that money was the root of all evil.

Frank's slumbers were undisturbed; he found the temporary arrangement
rather convenient than otherwise. He kindled his furnace fire before
going to the Squire's for breakfast and Britt Block was thoroughly warm
when he returned.

There was only one break in this routine, one occasion for alarm, and
the alarm was but temporary. Frank heard footsteps in the corridor one
evening after he had come back to the bank from the Squire's house.
Almost immediately Mr. Britt used his key and appeared to the young man.
“I waited till I was sure you were here,” the president explained. “What
Hexter doesn't know won't hurt him--and I thought I'd better not come
to the house for you. I'm sorry it's so late.” Britt was anxiously
apologetic.

“It isn't very late, sir.”

“But it's late, considering what's on my mind, Frank. And now that I'm
here I hate to tell you what my errand is.” He fumbled in his pocket and
brought out a letter, tapped it with his forefinger, and replaced it. “I
got it in the mail after you had gone to supper.”

“If it's any matter where I can be of help, sir, you needn't be a bit
afraid to speak out.”

“You can help, but--” After his hesitation Britt plunged on. “I wrote
to that broker that I was feeling a little under the weather and was
postponing my trip to the city, and now that fool of a Barnes writes
back that he's starting right behind his letter to come up here to
arrange about taking over the specie and closing the deal, because the
market is just right to act. And the through train, the one he'll be
sure to take, hits Levant about two o'clock to-morrow morning. He asks
me to send somebody down to meet him. That's all one of those taxicab
patronizers knows about traveling conditions in the country. Frank,
unless you'll volunteer to go I'll have to go myself. I don't want that
man talking all the way up here with old Files's gabby hostler, or with
anybody else I send from the village.”

Vaniman, even though he tried to make Britt's reasons for the request
seem convincing, could not help feeling that the financier's natural
secretiveness in matters of personal business was stretched somewhat in
this instance. But he gulped back any hesitation and offered to go on
the errand.

“Frank, when I was having my run of foolishness I was sorry that you
are young. Now I'm mighty glad of it,” declared Britt. “I can take your
place in yonder on the cot for the night--and I'm going to do it. But
I'll be frank enough to say that I'd rather you'd ride to Levant and
back in a sleigh to-night than do it myself. Go rout up Files's hostler,
borrow his fur coat, and bundle up warm. It's good slipping along the
road, and the trip may have a little pep for you, after all.”

And, putting away his momentary doubts, Frank reflected on the matter
and was honestly glad to vary the monotony of his close confinement to
the bank.

So he went and roused Files's hostler, bundled himself in the coat and
the sleigh robes, and made a really joyous experience out of the trip
to Levant, under the stars and over the snow that was crisped by the
night's chill.

He waited beside the station platform, standing up in the sleigh and
peering eagerly after the train stopped. He called the name, “Mr.
Barnes,” until the few sleepy, slouching, countrified passengers who
alighted had passed on their way.

It was perfectly apparent that Broker Barnes was not present to answer
roll call.

And after waiting, in whimsical delay, to make sure that Mr. Barnes had
not come footing it behind the train, Frank whipped up and drove back
to Egypt. He felt no pique; he had enjoyed the outing in the sparkling
night.

In the gray dawn he again routed out Files's yawning hostler and turned
the equipage over to him.

“Hope you found it a starry night for a ramble,” suggested the hostler,
willing to be informed as to why a bank cashier had been gallivanting
around over the country between days, turning in a sweating horse at
break of dawn.

Vaniman allowed that it was a starry night, all right, and left the
topic there, with a period set to it by the snap of his tone.

He went directly to the bank and admitted himself with his keys.

President Britt came from the back room, with yawns that matched those
of the hostler.

“What time did Barnes say he'd be down here from the tavern in the
morning?”

“Mr. Barnes did not come on that train, sir.”

“Well, I'll be--” rapped Britt, snapping shut his jaws.

“But I haven't minded the trip--I really enjoyed the ride,” insisted the
messenger.

“Don't tell that to Barnes when he shows up to-night on Ike Jones's
stage,” commanded Britt. “I propose to have a few words to say about
what it means in the country when a city fathead changes his mind about
the train he'll take.” He was looking past the cashier while he talked.
He turned away and picked up his hat and coat from a chair. “I'll be
going along to my house, I reckon. You'd better catch a cat-nap on the
cot. I found it comfortable. I've slept every minute since you've been
gone.”

Then Britt hurried out, locking the door behind him.



CHAPTER XII

SOMETHING TO BE EXPLAINED

By noon that day, in the lulls between customers at the wicket,
Vaniman had had a succession of run-ins with the demon of drowsiness--a
particularly mischievous elf, sometimes, in business hours. Whenever he
caught himself snapping back into wakefulness he found Vona's twinkle of
amusement waiting for him.

Once she pointed to the big figures on the day-by-day calendar on the
wall. The date was February 21st. “Console yourself, Frank, dear,” she
advised, teasing him. “The bank will be closed to-morrow and you can
make Washington's Birthday your sleep day! But I do hope you can stay
awake at our play this evening.”

“The man who invented sleep as a blessing didn't take into account city
brokers who change their minds about trains,” he returned. “I hope old
Ike Jones will sing that 'Ring, ting! Foo loo larry, lo day' song of his
all the way coming up from Levant. It'll be about the sort of punishment
that Behind-time Barnes deserves.”

A few minutes later the cashier was jumped out of another incipient
nap by the clamor of bells. The two horses that whisked past, pulling
a double-seated sleigh, were belted with bells. A big man with a
lambrequin mustache was filling the rear seat measurably well. Folks
recognized the team as a “let-hitch” from Levant.

“Mr. Barnes comes late, but he comes in style and with all his bells,”
 Vona suggested.

The equipage swung up beside the tavern porch and the big man threw off
the robes and stamped in, leaving the driver to take the horses to the
stable.

Landlord Files had furnished an accompaniment for the clangor of the
bells; he was pounding his dinner gong.

The new arrival had a foghorn voice and used it in hearty volume in
telling Mr. Files that his music was all right and mighty timely! “And
that alligator seems to be calling for his grub, too,” he remarked, on
his way to hang up his coat. “But he doesn't look any hungrier than I
feel.”

“Room?” inquired the landlord, hopefully, swinging the register book and
pulling a pen out of a withered potato.

“No room! Just dinner. I expect to be out of here by night.”

Mr. Files stabbed the potato with a vicious pen thrust. He knew food
capacity when he viewed it; there would be some profit from a lodging,
but none from a two-shilling meal served to a man who had compared
himself with that open-mouthed saurian.

But the guest grabbed the penstock while it was still vibrating. He
wrote across the book, with great flourishes: “Fremont Starr. State Bank
Examiner. February 21st.”

“A matter of record, landlord! Show's I'm here. Tells the world I was
here on date noted. Never can tell when the law will call for records.
Hotel registers are fine evidence. Always keep your registers.”

“I've had that one eleven years, and it 'ain't been filled up yet,”
 averred Mr. Files, inspecting the potentate's signature as sourly as
if he were estimating by how much the lavish use of ink had reduced the
possible dinner profit. “You're the new appointment, hey? I heard you
speak, one time, over at the political rally in the shire town.”

“Both my enemies and my friends would have advised you to stay right
here on your porch--saying that you could hear me just as well, if you
didn't care to make the trip to the shire,” said Mr. Starr, lifting the
mat of his mustache in a wide smile. “But when they call me 'Foghorn
Fremont' I'm never one mite offended. 'Let your light shine and your
voice be heard,' is my motto in politics.”

“Shouldn't wonder if it's a good one, when they get to passing around
the offices,” admitted Files. He started on his way to the kitchen.

At that moment President Britt entered, having answered the gong with
the promptitude of a fireman chasing a box alarm.

“What have you on the fire, landlord?” called Mr. Starr, absorbed in the
dinner topic.

“Boiled dinner!”

Britt did not show the enthusiasm that was exhibited by the other guest.

“Nothing like a boiled dinner after a long ride,” Mr. Starr affirmed.
“Plenty of cabbage with mine, if you'll be so kind!”

Files gave Mr. Britt some information that he thought might be of
interest. “Here's the new bank examiner. Seeing that you probably have
business together, I'll set both of you at the same table.” He retired.

After the commonplaces of getting acquainted, the two tacked the boiled
dinner.

“Let's see--who's your cashier?” inquired Starr, chewing vigorously
behind the mask of his mustache.

“Young fellow named Vaniman. I have let him take full charge of the bank
business. He seems to know all the ropes.”

“Poor policy, Britt! Poor policy!” stated the examiner, vehemently. “Not
a word to say against Vaniman--” He halted on the word and opened his
eyes on Britt. “Vaniman! A name that sticks. There was a Vaniman of
Verona. Easy to remember! There was some sort of a money snarl, as I
recollect.”

“It was the young chap's father.”

“And you're letting the son run your bank?”

“I'm not the kind that visits the sins of the fathers on the children,”
 loftily stated the president. “Furthermore, a burnt child dreads the
fire. I heard a railroad manager say that a trainman who had let an
accident happen by his negligence was worth twice as much to the road as
he was before. You don't say that I made a bad pick, do you?”

“Not a word to say against Vaniman!” repeated Starr, slashing his
cabbage. “I never _guess_ about any proposition--I go at it! But what
I'm saying to you, Britt, is what I'm saying to all the easy-going
country-town bankers. 'You may have second editions of the Apostle
Paul for your cashiers,' I say, 'but every time you sign a statement of
condition without close and careful audit you're bearing false witness.'
And being a new broom that proposes to sweep clean, I'm tempted to
poke it just as hard to slack presidents and directors as I am to an
embezzling cashier who has been given plenty of rope to run as he wants!
_I'm_ on the job _examining_ banks!” He was a vigorous man, Examiner
Starr! He showed it by the way he went at his corned beef.

President Britt was perturbed; his eyes shifted; he was even pale. “If
that's the way you feel about it, I hope you'll give our little bank a
good going-over. I was glad to read of your appointment, Mr. Starr!”

“Uncle Whittum isn't on this job any longer,” stated the examiner, not
needing, in Britt's case, as a banker, to dwell upon the lax methods of
the easy-going predecessor.

A half hour later, Starr, with his unbuttoned fur-lined overcoat
outspread as he strode, giving him the aspect of a scaling aeroplane,
marched from the tavern to the bank with Britt.

Vaniman had his mouth opened to welcome a man named Barnes, but he
was presented to Bank-Examiner Starr and surprise placed him at a
disadvantage in the meeting. The torpor of drowsiness made him appear
stupid and ill at ease in the presence of this forceful man who stamped
in and proceeded to exploit and enjoy his newly acquired authority. Mr.
Starr hung up his coat and hat and swooped like a hawk on the daybook,
at the same time calling for the book of “petty cash.”

“First of all, the finger on the pulse of the patient, Cashier,” he
declared, grimly jovial. “Then we'll have a look at the tongue, and
study the other symptoms.”

President Britt went away to his own office.

Examiner Starr, confining himself to his announced policy of grabbing
in on the running operations of the bank at the moment of his entry,
studied the petty-cash accounts and checked up the daybook with
thoroughness. He found everything all right and grunted his
acknowledgment of that discovery.

Then he began on the ledgers, assuring Vona with ponderous gallantry
that he wouldn't get in her way; he averred that he had a comparison
system of his own, and showed the pride of “the new broom.”

After a time it was apparent that Mr. Starr was having trouble. He
added columns of figures over again and scowled; his system was plainly
trigged.

“Young lady, where's your comptometer?” he demanded, after he had made a
quick survey of the office.

“We have never used one, sir.”

“One is indispensable these days in a bank--especially when a bookkeeper
can't add a column of figures correctly by the old method.”

She flushed and her lips quivered. “I'm sure I do add correctly, sir. My
books always balance.”

“Add that column, young lady!” He indicated the column with the plunging
pressure of a stubby digit, and stood so close to her, while she toiled
up the line of figures, that his breath fanned her hair.

Vaniman looked on, sympathizing, feeling sure that the bluff inquisitor
had made a mistake of his own.

Her confusion under Starr's baleful espionage sent her wits scattering.
She jotted down the total, as she made it.

“Wrong!” announced the examiner. “And your figures are different, even,
from the wrong total you have on the books. Try again.”

She set her lips and controlled her emotions and went over the work once
more.

Starr exhibited figures which he had jotted on a bit of paper that he
had palmed. “You're right, as the figures stand! But your book total
doesn't agree with those figures. Now what say?”

Vona was distinctly in no condition to say anything sensible; she stared
from the figures to Starr, showing utter amazement, and then she mutely
appealed to the cashier.

“I'm sure that Miss Harnden is remarkably accurate in her work, Mr.
Starr,” asserted the young man. “I have been in the habit of going over
it, myself, and I have found no errors.”

“Oh, you go over it, do you? That's good!” But Starr's tone was not one
of satisfied indorsement. He picked up the big book and carried it to
the center table. He fished from his waistcoat pocket a small reading
glass, unfolded the lenses, and studied the page. He turned other pages
and performed the same minute inspection. Then he took the ledger to the
window and held page after page against the glass, propping the book in
his big hands.

When he turned, Vona was sitting in a chair, trembling, tears in her
eyes, apprehension ridging her face.

“Cashier Vaniman, I don't want to hurt this young lady's feelings any
more than I have. There's no sense in blaming her until I understand the
which and the why of this thing. I have found column after column added
wrongly. Perhaps she has done her work, originally, all right. But the
pages of this ledger are pretty well speckled with erasures. The two of
you will have to thresh it out between yourselves. I'm looking to you
as the responsible party in this bank, Vaniman. I'll do the rest of my
talking to you. After you have found out what the trouble is you must
explain to me.”

“There can be no trouble with our books!” But the cashier stammered; his
incredulity would not permit him to discuss the matter then or to offer
any sort of explanation; in his amazement he could not think of any
possible explanation. He could not convince himself that Vona needed
other protection than her own thoroughness and rectitude gave her;
however, he wanted to extend his protection.

“If anything is wrong with the accounts, you may most certainly look to
me, Mr. Starr. I assume full responsibility. I have found Miss Harnden
to be most accurate.”

“I ought to have been through with this small bank and away by night,”
 grumbled the examiner. “But I'm going to give you a fair show, Vaniman,
by waiting over. You've got this evening--and to-morrow is a holiday,
and you can take that day, if you need it, to get this tangle
straightened out. I'm stopping my work right here.” He slammed the
ledger shut and tossed it on the girl's desk. “There's no sense in going
through your cash in the vault till I can check by the book accounts.
But, bless my soul! I can't understand by what rhyme or reason those
figures have been put into the muddle they're in. It's coarse work. I'll
be frank and say that it doesn't look like a sane man's attempt to put
something over. That's why I'm lenient with you and am not sticking one
of my closure notices on to your front door. Now get busy, so that you
can be sure it won't go up on the door day after to-morrow.”

He took down his coat and hat and when he left the room they heard him
go into Tasper Britt's office across the corridor.

The stricken lovers faced each other, appalled, mystified, questioning
with the looks they exchanged.

“Frank,” the girl wailed, “you know I haven't--”

“I know you have been faithful and careful, in every stroke of your pen,
dear. Whatever it is, it's not your fault.”

“But what has happened to the books?” she queried, winking back her
tears, trying hard to meet him on the plane of his calmness; he was
getting his feelings in hand.

“I propose to find out before I close my eyes this night,” he told her,
gravely.



CHAPTER XIII

MISFORTUNE MEDDLES

Shortly before the supper hour, Britt and Starr came into the bank;
they wore their overcoats and hats, and were on their way to the tavern,
evidently.

“How are you making it, Frank?” the president inquired, with solicitude.

A sympathetic observer would have found a suggestion of captives, caged
and hopeless, in the demeanor of the cashier and the bookkeeper behind
the grille.

Vaniman peered through the lattice into the gloom where the callers
stood and shook his head. “I'm not making it well at all, sir.”

“But you must have some idea of what the trouble is.”

“There's trouble, all right, Mr. Britt--plenty of it. There's no use
in my denying that. But I'm not far enough along to give any sensible
explanation.”

The president showed real anxiety. “What do you say for a guess?”

“If you are asking me only for a guess, I should say that the ghost of
Jim the Penman has been amusing himself with these books,” replied the
cashier; he was bitter; he was showing the effects of worry that was
aggravated by lack of sleep.

“Aha! Plainly not far enough along for a sensible explanation,” rumbled
Examiner Starr.

“A knave is usually ready with a good story when he has been taken by
surprise. Honesty isn't as handy with the tongue. I can only say that
something--I don't say somebody--has put these books into a devil of a
mess, and I'm doing my best to straighten them.”

“I wish you luck,” affirmed Starr. “I've been talking with your
president and he says everything good about your faithfulness, and about
how you have been doing guard duty in the bank of late. Perhaps you're a
sleepwalker, Vaniman,” he added, with heavy humor.

“I feel like one now,” retorted the cashier. “I was awake all last
night.”

“Ah! Doing what?” asked the examiner, politely, but without interest.

The question hinted that in the talk in Britt's office the president had
refrained from mention of Barnes, the broker. Vaniman decided instantly
to respect Britt's reticence; the president had shown much caution
the night before, even in regard to Squire Hexter. “Oh, merely running
around on a little business of my own, Mr. Starr.”

Britt did not assist by any reference to his own share in the business.
“We may as well start along toward the tavern, Starr.” The president
took two steps toward the grille and addressed Vona. “I'm going to take
Mr. Starr to the show this evening. I want him to see what smart girls
we have in Egypt.”

Vona did not reply. She turned to Vaniman with the air of one who has
suddenly been reminded of something forgotten in the stress of affairs.
But before she had an opportunity to speak there was a tramping of hasty
feet in the corridor and her father came in through the door that
had been left ajar by Britt. “Good evening, all!” hailed Mr. Harnden,
cheerily. “But, see here, Vona, my dear girl, we have been waiting
supper a whole half hour. You've got scant time to eat and get on your
stage togs.”

“This has been a pretty busy day in the bank, Harnden,” explained Britt.
“Meet Mr. Starr, the bank examiner!”

“Oh, hullo, Starr!” cried Mr. Harnden, shoving out a friendly hand.
“Heard you were in town. I know Starr,” he told Britt. “I know everybody
in the state worth knowing. I told you so.”

Mr. Starr was not effusive; there was a hint of sarcasm in his inquiry
as to how the invention business was coming along.

“Fine and flourishing!” announced Harnden, radiantly. Then he blurted
some news which seemed to embarrass Britt very much; the news also
provoked intense interest in Vaniman and the daughter. “All I've ever
needed is backing, Starr. Now I've got it!” He clapped his hand on the
banker's shoulder. “Here's my backer--good as a certified check. Hey,
Tasper?”

“I'm--I'm always ready to help develop local talent,” Britt admitted,
stammering, turning his back on the faces at the grille. “Starr, we'd
better get along toward the tavern. I've had some poor luck with Files
when he's off his schedule time!”

“The new combination of Harnden and Britt will make 'em sit up and take
notice,” persisted the inventor. Forgetting Vona, desiring to impress a
skeptic from the outside world, he followed Starr and the banker.

Vaniman and the girl listened to the optimist's fervid declarations till
the slam of the outside door shut them off.

“That sounds like an interesting investment, Vona,” was the cashier's
dry comment. “Mr. Britt seems to be swinging that watering pot of his
new generosity around in pretty reckless fashion. I wonder what he'll do
next!”

“Frank, I'm afraid!” She spoke in a whisper, staring hard at him. “No,
no! Not what you think! I am not afraid because he is buying my father.
If Mr. Britt thinks I can be included in that bargain he is wiser
in making his money than he is in spending it. But there's something
dreadful at work against us!” She had her hand on the page of an open
ledger.

“The books can be straightened,” he insisted. “I can do it. I'll do it,
if I have to call in every depositor's pass book.” He pointed to the
vault. He was keeping the doors open till his work was done. “As long as
the money is there, every cent of it, the final checking will show for
itself. And the money will be there! I'm answering for that much! I
propose to stay with it till that Barnes shows up.”

“I remember now that you told me he would come by the stage to-day.”

“So Britt gave me to understand, when I reported that he didn't come on
the night train.”

“But I looked out of the window a little while ago--there was no
passenger with Jones.”

“Has the stage come?” He glanced at the clock and blinked at the girl.
“Well, I guess those books had me hypnotized!”

“Small wonder,” she said, bitterly. “I tell you I'm afraid, Frank!
There's something we don't see through!”

“I don't dare to waste any more time wondering what the trouble is,
Vona. I must get on to the job.”

“Both of us must.”

“It's time for you to be going home.”

“I'm going to stay here.”

“But, dear girl, there's the play! You have the leading part!”

“The words will stick in my throat and tears will blind me when I think
of you working here alone. Frank, I insist! I will not leave you. They
must postpone the play.”

He went to her and laid her hands, one upon the other, between his
caressing palms. “The folks will be there--they are expecting the
play--you must not disappoint them. It's as much your duty to go to the
hall as it is mine to stay here with the books. And another thing! Think
of the stories that will be set going, with the bank examiner here, if
it's given out that the play had to be postponed because you couldn't
leave the books. Such a report might start a run on the bank. Folks
would be sure to think there's trouble here. You must go, Vona. It's for
the sake of both of us.”

He went and brought her coat and hat.

“I can't go through with the play,” she wailed.

“We've got to use all the grit that's in us--whatever it is we're up
against. Come! Hold out your arms!” He assisted her with the coat.

He drew her toward the door with his arm about her. “We'll make a good
long day of it to-morrow--a holiday. George Washington never told a lie.
Perhaps those books will come to themselves in the morning and realize
what day it is and will stop lying! Now be brave!”

The kiss he gave her was long and tender; she clung to him. He released
her, but she turned in the corridor and hurried back to him. “I
shouldn't feel as I do--worried sick about you, Frank! The books must
come out right, because both of us have been careful and honest.”

“Exactly! The thing will prove itself in the end. The money in that
vault will talk for us! I'll do a little talking, myself, when--But no
matter now!”

“You have suspicions! I know you have!”

“Naturally, not believing as much in ghosts or demons as I may have
intimated to Starr.”

She looked apprehensively over her shoulder into the dark corners of the
corridor. Then she drew his face down close to hers. “And it's hard to
believe in the reformation of demons,” she whispered.

“I'm doing a whole lot of thinking, little girl. But I don't want
to talk now. Do your best at the play. Hide your troubles behind
smiles--that's real fighting! And we'll see what to-morrow will do for
us.”

“Yes, to-morrow!” She ran away, but again she returned. “And nothing
can happen to you here, in a quiet town like this, can it, Frank?” she
asked.

“Nothing but what can be taken care of with that shotgun in the back
room! But don't look frightened, precious girl! There's nothing--”

But even Vaniman was startled, the next moment. The girl leaped into his
embrace and cowered. Something was clattering against a window of
the bank. But only the mild face of Squire Hexter was framed in the
lamplight cast on the window. He called, when he got a peep at the
cashier, who came hastening back inside the grille: “Supper, boy!
Supper! Come along!”

Frank threw up the window. “I'll make what's left over from my lunch do
me, Squire. I'm tied up here with my work.”

“I'll allow the new Starr in our local sky to keep you away from
euchre,” the Squire grumbled, “but I swanny if I'll let your interest in
astronomy, all of a sudden, keep you away from the hot vittles you need.
You come along with me to the house.”

“Squire, I can't lock the vault yet awhile. I don't want to leave things
as they are. I must not.”

Vona had come to his side, she understood the nature of his anxiety. “I
am just starting for my house, Squire Hexter. I'm going to hurry back
with Frank's supper, so that he won't be bothered.”

“Bless your soul, sis, even Xoa will be perfectly satisfied with that
arrangement when I explain,” said the Squire, gallantly. “I'm tempted to
stay, myself, if Hebe is going to serve.” He backed away and did a grand
salaam, flourishing the cane whose taps on the window had startled the
lovers.

“You must not take the time, Vona,” protested the young man.

“I'll bring the supper when I'm on my way to the hall. Not another word!
If I'm to lose the best part of my audience from the hall to-night,
I can, at least, have that best part give me a compliment on my new
gown--and give me,” she went on, reassuring him by a brave little smile,
“a whole lot of courage by a dear kiss.”

She hurried away.

He was hard at work when she returned, carrying a wicker basket.

Again he protested because she was taking so much trouble, but she laid
aside her coat and insisted on arranging the food on a corner of the
table, a happy flush on her cheeks, giving him thanks with her eyes when
he praised her gown.

“I'm going to look in on you after the show,” she declared. “Father will
come with me.”

Vona remained with him until the wall clock warned her.

She asked him to wait a moment when he brought her wraps. She stood
before him in her gay garb, wistfully appealing. “Frank, I was intending
to have a little play of my own with you at the hall to-night. I was
going to look right past that Durgin boy, straight down into your eyes,
when I came to a certain place in the play. I was intending to let the
folks of Egypt know something, providing they all don't know it by now.
This is what I have to say, and now I'm saying it to the only audience I
care for:

     “'Twere vain to tell thee all I feel,
     Or say for thee I'd die.
     Ah, well-a-day, the sweetest melody
     Could never, never say one half my love for thee.”

Then, after a moment, she escaped from his ardent embrace.

“Remember that, dearest,” she called from the doorway.

“I'll remember it every time I start with a line of figures, you blessed
girl. And then how my pencil will go dancing up the column!”

After she had gone he pulled the curtain cords, raising the curtains so
that they covered the lower sashes; he did not care to be seen at his
work by the folks who were on their way to the hall.

Squire Hexter, escorting Xoa, took the trouble to step to the window and
tap lightly with his cane. He was hoping that the cashier would change
his mind and go to the hall. He waited after tapping but Vaniman did not
appear at the window. The Squire did not venture to tap again. “He must
be pretty well taken up with his work,” he suggested to Xoa when they
were on their way. “That's where we get the saying, 'Deaf as an adder.'”

Oblivious to all sounds, bent over his task, Vaniman gave to the
exasperating puzzle all the concentration he could muster.

The play that evening at Town Hall dragged after the fashion of amateur
shows. The management of the sets and the properties consumed much
time. There were mishaps. One of these accidents had to do with the
most ambitious scene of the piece, a real brook--the main feature of
the final, grand tableau when folks were trying to keep awake at eleven
o'clock. The brook came babbling down over rocks and was conveyed
off-stage by means of a V-shaped spout. There was much merriment when
the audience discovered that the brook could be heard running uphill
behind the scenes; two hobble-de-hoy boys were dipping the water with
pails from the washboiler at the end of the sluice and lugging it
upstairs, where they dumped it into the brook's fount. The brook's
peripatetic qualities were emphasized when both boys fell off the top of
the makeshift stairs and came down over the rocks, pails and all. Then
there was hilarity which fairly rocked the hall.

For some moments another sound--a sound which did not harmonize with the
laughter--was disregarded by the audience.

All at once the folks realized that a man was squalling
discordantly--his shrieks almost as shrill as a frightened porker's
squeals. Heads were snapped around. Eyes saw Dorsey, the municipal
watchman, almost the only man of the village of Egypt who was not of
the evening's audience in Town Hall. He was standing on a settee at
the extreme rear of the auditorium. He was swinging his arms wildly; as
wildly was he shouting. He noted that he had secured their attention.

“How in damnation can you laugh” he screamed. “The bank has been robbed
and the cashier murdered!”



CHAPTER XIV

A BANK TURNED INSIDE OUT

When the skeow-wowed “brook” twisted the drama into an anticlimax of
comicality, the players who were on the stage escaped the deluge by
fleeing into the wings.

Vona had been waiting for her cue to join the hero and pledge their vows
beside the babbling stream. After one horrified gasp of amazement, she
led off the hilarity back-stage. Frank was in her mind at that moment,
as he had been all the evening; her zestful enjoyment of the affair was
heightened by the thought that she could help him forget his troubles
for a little while by the story she would carry to him. Then she and the
others in the group heard the piercing squeals of a man's voice.

“Somebody has got hystierucks out of it, and I don't blame him,” stated
the manager of the show. He grabbed the handle of the winch and began to
let down the curtain. “I reckon the only sensible thing to do is to let
Brook Number One and Brook Number Two take the curtain call.”

Then Dorsey's shrill insistence prevailed over the roars of laughter in
front; the young folks on the stage heard his bloodcurdling bulletin.

The manager let slip the whirling handle and the pole of the hurrying
curtain thumped the platform. Vona had leaped, risking her life, and was
able to dodge under the descending pole. For a moment, sick with horror
and unutterable woe, she stood there alone against the tawdry curtain,
as wide-eyed and white-faced as Tragedy's muse.

Men, women, and children, all the folks of Egypt, were struggling to
their feet; the sliding settees squawked and clattered.

She saw Tasper Britt, fighting a path for himself, Starr following.
Britt's face, above his blackened beard, was yellow-pale.

Panic was piling the people at the narrow rear doors; the weight of
those who were rushing forward wedged all the mass at the exits.

“Vona!” called the manager, pulling at the edge of the curtain to give
her passage. “This way! The side door.”

The summons helped to put away her faintness; her strength came back
to her. Her goal was the bank! In the frenzy of her solicitude for her
lover she took no thought of herself.

The others stopped to find their wraps. Vona ran down the street as she
was, bareheaded, the ribbons of her stage finery fluttering. She was
close behind the first arrivals at the open door of Britt Block. All the
other portals were wide open, bank door and grille door. But the door of
the vault was closed.

She thrust herself resolutely through the group of men and made a
frenzied survey of the bank's interior. Her single quest was for
Vaniman; he was nowhere in sight. The books of account were open on the
desk, mute evidence for her that he had been interrupted suddenly.

She voiced demands in shrill tones, but the men had no information for
her. She called his name wildly and there was no reply.

“I found the outside door open,” said Dorsey, raucously hoarse. “I came
in, and all was just as you see it.”

“But you said that he--that Frank--” Vona pressed her hands against her
throat; she could not voice the terrible announcement that Dorsey had
made.

“Well, if it ain't that, what else is it?” insisted the watchman.

Then Tasper Britt arrived in the room, followed by the bank examiner;
they entered, breathing heavily and running with the tread of
Percherons.

“If it ain't murder and robbery, what is it, Mr. Britt?” Dorsey bawled,
evidently feeling the authority was then on the scene and was demanding
report and action.

“I don't know--I don't know!” the president quavered, staggering to
the grille and clutching the wires with both hands in order to steady
himself. He was palpably, unmistakably stricken with a fear that was
overpowering him.

The outer office was filling; the corridor was being packed by the
arriving throngs.

Examiner Starr took command of the situation. He noted the nickel badge
on Dorsey's breast. “Officer, put every person except Mr. Britt out of
this building!”

But Watchman Dorsey, though he commanded and pushed, was not able to
make any impression.

“By my authority as bank examiner, I order this place cleared!” bellowed
Mr. Starr. The folks of Egypt showed that they were greatly interested
in the volume of voice possessed by “Foghorn Fremont,” but they did not
retreat. For that matter, the crowd in the room was thoroughly blocked
at the door by the press in the corridor.

Starr's attention was wholly taken up by one individual for the next few
minutes. Prophet Elias boldly advanced, after worming his way out of
the throng; he pushed the examiner aside from the door of the grille and
went into the inner inclosure. An intruder who was prosaically garbed
would not have prevailed as easily as this bizarre individual with the
deep-set eyes, assertive mien, and wearing a robe that put him out
of the ordinary run of humanity. But Mr. Starr got back his voice and
ordered the Prophet to walk out.

Elias turned slowly and faced Starr. The Prophet's feet were hidden by
the robe and he came around with the effect of a window dummy revolving
on a support. Starr bawled more furious demands.

But the Prophet did not lower his crest. “'Many bulls have compassed
me: strong bulls of Bashan have beset me round. They gaped upon me with
their mouths, as a ravening and a roaring lion.'”

Then the Prophet spatted his palm upon the legend on his breast and
clacked a disdainful digit off the pivot of his thumb. Tasper Britt,
even in his hottest ire, had been restrained in the past by some
influence from laying violent hands on this peculiar personage. It was
evident that Starr was controlled by a similar reluctance and that his
forbearance was puzzling him. When the Prophet got down on his knees,
Starr was silent; it looked as if this zealot intended to offer
prayer--and the bank examiner did not care to earn the reputation of
being a disturber of a religious gathering. But Elias doubled over and
began to crawl around the room on his hands and knees, peering
intently and cocking his ear and seeming to take much interest in his
undertaking.

Until then, in the rush of events, in the haste of gathering at the
scene of the tragedy, in the wild uncertainty as to what had happened,
nobody had taken the time to study the details of the conditions in the
bank inclosure.

Starr ordered Dorsey to stand in front of the grille door and keep out
all persons. The examiner was obliged to urge Britt to unclasp his hands
and follow him before the door was closed and locked against the crowd.

Vona had stumbled to a chair; she was staring about her, trying to
control her horror and steady her mind so that she might comprehend what
had happened. Under a stool she saw a crumpled coat; she leaped from her
chair, secured it, and sat down again. It was Frank's office coat; both
sleeves were ripped and the back breadths were torn. She held it forward
in her shaking hands for the inspection of the bank examiner. But Mr.
Starr was too intent on other matters to take heed of the pathetic proof
of violence. He was particularly concerned with what he had found in one
corner.

Literally, thousands of small metal disks were heaped and scattered
there. Some of the disks had rolled to all parts of the room. The
Prophet had been scraping up handfuls of them, inspecting them, and
throwing them t

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