When Egypt Went Broke | Page 6

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