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.
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