"You mean, that's where you would have him if the shelter of my roof
didn't give him legal protection," returned Usial, calm in the face of
wrath.

"'I was a stranger, and ye took me in,'" declaimed the Prophet.

"And I'm keeping you on," stated the cynical Usial, speaking for his
brother's benefit, "because you're a self-operating, red-hot gad that
is helping me torment yon pirate with texts after I had run out of cuss
words. Go ahead, Prophet! Shoot anything. It's a poor text that will not
hit him some place."

Obediently, the fanatic began to mouth Holy Writ in orotund. Tasper
Britt raised his fist. But the devil himself shrinks before The Word.
Britt did not strike. His face revealed his emotions; he could not bring
himself to assault this fountain of sacred aphorisms.

He turned and marched away down the middle of the road, stamping hard
into the snow.

One of the listeners was a man who came bearing a pair of shoes. Usial
Britt took them from the man's hand. "You can have 'em to-morrow night."

"But there's only a little patch needed--"

"To-morrow night, I said. I've got other business for to-day." He went
into the house and slammed the door.

The Prophet set his umbrella over his head and went away on the trail of