"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.