“I didn’t mean I was wrong on that point,” proceeded Wagg, remorselessly.  “But I had watched you bang around your cell and I concluded that you was ready to make about a fifty-fifty split of the swag with the chap who could get you out of here.  If you’re still stuffy, you’ll have to stay that way—­and stay in here, too!”

He took another promenade, pursuing his regular policy of starting the fire and letting the kettle come aboil on its own hook.

“What good would it do me to escape from this prison—­to be hounded and hunted from one end of the world to the other?” Vaniman demanded, when Wagg had returned to the stool.  “I do want to get out.  But I want to get out right!  I have a job to do for myself when I’m out of here!” Mr. Wagg nodded understandingly.  “And that job is right in the same town where I have been living.”

“Exactly!” agreed the guard.  “And speaking of a job, you don’t think for one moment, do you, that I’d be earning a fifty-fifty split by boosting you over that wall or smuggling you out of the gate to shift for yourself?  Small wonder that you got hot, thinking I meant it that way.  My plan will put you out right!  My plan is a prime plan that can be worked only once.  Therefore, it’s worth money.”

“Damn it, I haven’t the money!” Vaniman, exasperated by this pertinacity, was not able to control his feelings or his language.

“It’s too bad you are still at the point where you think you haven’t got it,” returned Mr. Wagg.  “I’m a terrible good waiter.  Reckon I have showed that kind of a disposition already.  When you get to the other and sensible point where you want to be out of here, and out right, with nobody chasing and hectoring you, you and I will do business on the fifty-fifty basis.  It may seem high,” he pursued.  “But all prices are high in these times.  They’re so blamed high that I’m in debt, simply trying to give my family a decent living.  The state won’t raise my wages.  The state practically says, ‘You’ll have to do the best you can!’ The state owes me a living.  So I’ll grab on to the assets that the state has hove into my reach, and will speculate as best I know now.”

“You think I’m your asset, eh?”

“You’re not worth a cent to me or yourself until I operate.  And when you’re ready to have me operate—­fifty-fifty—­give me the high sign.  And something will be done what was never done before!”

Then Wagg carried his stool to the lee of a shop wall, seeking shade—­too far away for further talk.

CHAPTER XIX

AND PHARAOH’S HEART WAS HARDENED

By the wiles of Wagg and a soap diet Frank Vaniman had been able to secure his modest slice of God’s sunlight.

There was aplenty of that sunshine in Egypt.  It flooded the bare hills and the barren valleys; there were not trees enough to trig the sunlight’s flood with effective barriers of shade.