“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.