Vaniman refrained from making a reply; the Prophet was displaying an embarrassing amount of sapience as to conditions.

In front of Usial Britt’s cot they halted and the eccentric leaned close to Vaniman’s ear.  “Joseph, my son, keep thine eye peeled.”  He released the cashier’s arm and strode to the door of Usial’s house.

Vaniman, delaying his departure, noted that the door did not give way when the Prophet wrenched at the knob.  The guest banged his fist against a panel.  “Let it be opened unto me!” he shouted.

His voice served as his guaranty; Usial Britt opened the door and slammed it shut so suddenly after the Prophet had entered that it was necessary to reopen the portal and release the tail of Elias’s robe.

CHAPTER VI

“The Hornet” Goes to press

Vaniman did not go on his way at once, though, by his daily routine, he was headed toward his bit of recreation which cheered the end of his day of occupation.  Every afternoon he dropped in at the office of Notary Amos Hexter—­“Squire” Hexter, the folks of Egypt called him—­and played euchre with the amiable old chap.  After the euchre, the Squire and Frank trudged over to the Hexter home; the cashier boarded with the Squire and his wife, Xoa.

In his general uneasiness, in his hankering for any sort of information that would help his affairs, the young man was tempted to follow the provocative Elias and pin him down to something definite; the flashes of shrewd sanity in the fanatic’s mouthings had encouraged Frank to believe that the Prophet was not quite as much of an ingenuous lunatic as his gab and garb suggested.

Right away, curiosity of another sort added its impulse.

Usial’s windows were uncurtained, though the grime on them helped to conceal activities within by a sort of ground-glass effect.  But Vaniman could see well enough to understand what was going on.  Every once in a while a canvas flap came over in a half circle across Vaniman’s line of vision through one of the windows.  Then a hairy arm turned a crank briskly; a moment later the arm pulled at a horizontal bar with vigor.

It was plain that Usial Britt was printing.

Vaniman had seen the shoemaker’s printing equipment in common with everybody else who dropped into the shop.  There were a few cases of worn type; there was a venerable Washington hand press.  Vaniman had even been down on his knees, by Usial’s invitation, and had peered up at the under surface of the imposing stone.

When Tasper Britt wanted a burial lot in the Egypt cemetery of a size sufficient to set off his statue in good shape, he secured a hillock in which some of the patriarchs of the pioneers had been interred.  There was no known descendants to say him nay.  A fallen slate slab that had been long concealed in the tangled grass was tossed over the cemetery fence by the men who cleared up the hillock.  Usial Britt considered the slab a legitimate find and with it replaced a marble imposing stone that had become gouged and cracked.  Vaniman had found the inscription interesting when he knelt and peered up: