“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.’”