However all at once they could not be induced to give food or even to sell it.  They acted as if they did not care to be bothered; some of them declared that they were too busy to do cooking.  They would not allow Mr. Bangs to stick his nose into their houses; they snapped refusal at him from behind doors only partially opened and foot-braced.

Men with whom Bangs conversed wore an air of abstraction.  They plainly were not interested in Mr. Bangs or in the convicts whom he was pursuing.  He tackled them on all sorts of subjects, hoping to hit on the topic which was absorbing so much of their attention.  He went so far as to ask them bluntly what they were carrying on their minds besides hair.  Those who were not surly looked scared.

Even the barn doors were no longer frankly open.  There was a mysterious sort of subsurface stir everywhere.  There was expectancy that was ill disguised.  Mr. Bangs, a stranger, perceived that strangers, for some unexplained reason, had ceased to be popular in Egypt.  One day a man gruffly told him that detectives would do well to go off and do their detecting in some other place.  That was pretty blunt, and Mr. Bangs informed his helper that he, personally, had had about enough of the gummed-up, infernal town.  He declared that he was going to leave.  Mr. Bangs was more certain about his departure when he arrived back at Files’s tavern that evening.  Mr. Files informed him that there would be no more accommodations at the tavern after that night.  Mr. Files, questioned, refused to say whether he intended to close the tavern or was merely going away; he would reveal nothing about his further plans.

Mr. Bangs went out and sat on the porch bench with his helper, and irefully asked that bewildered person what the ding-dong the matter was with the dad-fired town, anyway?

In default of specific knowledge the aide tried to be humorous.  He told Mr. Bangs that it looked as if the hive was getting ready to swarm.  His facetiousness fell flat; Mr. Bangs scowled.  The helper became serious.

“I’ve been watching the old hystrampus they call the Prophet.  Everywhere we’ve been the past few days, he seems to be just coming or just going.  Noticed him, haven’t you?”

“Of course I’ve noticed him.”

“I don’t know what his religious persuasion is, because he hasn’t done any talking where I could overhear him.  But he seems to be getting busier all the time.  Do you know what he preaches?”

“I’m working for the state prison, not the state insane asylum.”

“Well,” drawled the other, “though I don’t know what he’s preaching, the general fussed-up condition here in this town reminds me of what happened in Carmel when I lived there as a boy.  One of them go-upper preachers struck town.  He finally got most of our neighbors into a state of whee-ho where the womenfolks made ascension robes for all concerned and the menfolks built a high platform and they all climbed up on it and waited all one night for Gabr’el’s trump to sound.”