When Egypt Went Broke | Page 4

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