Mr. Britt leaped off the porch, thrust the Prophet from his path, and
strode across the street toward the man in the door. The brother did
not lose his smile. He maintained his placid demeanor even when an angry
finger slashed through the air close under his nose.

"I never intended to pass speech with you again, you renegade," stormed
Tasper. "But I'm talking to-day for a town that I propose to represent
in the legislature, and I won't have it shamed any longer by a lunatic
that you're harboring."

Usial Britt lifted his eyebrows. "The legislature?" He puckered his lips
and whistled a few bars of "Hail to the Chief."

Candidate Britt waggled the monitory finger more energetically. "You are
sheltering and ste'boying on a crazy man who is making the rest of the
people in this town crazy. If they hadn't grown loony they'd ride him
out over the line on a rail."

The Prophet had arrived at Britt's shoulder. "'But God has chose the
foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God has chosen the
weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty.'"

"I don't guarantee my guest's brains," said the Britt in the door, "but
I do vouch for the correctness of his memory when it comes to the matter
of Gospel quotations. And a cracked record doesn't always spoil a good
tune."

"I'll have him in the lockup as a tramp, or on the poor farm as a
lunatic."