scale. The old
sheep, so cynics said, were trained to hold the lambs by their tails and
lower them head downward among the rocks to graze. Poor men usually
own dogs. But dogs would not live long in Egypt, the cynics went on to
assert; the dogs ran themselves to death hustling over the town line to
find dirt enough to bury a bone.

Mr. Britt could see his statue in the cemetery.

Down the street was a one-story brick building, the only brick structure
in the town. Set into the front of this building was a replica of the
statue in the cemetery. Britt had secured special rates by ordering two
statues from the stonecutter. Britt possessed vanity. He had hidden it,
begrudging the cost of gratifying it. The crust of his nature, hardening
through the years, had pressed upon that vanity. The statues, his
refurbished beard, and his rehaired head had relieved the pressure
somewhat, but the vanity was still sore. In his new mood he was dreading
a blow on that sore spot. He realized what kind of a grudge he was
carrying around. A vague sense of an unjust deal in life is more
dangerous to the possessor than an acute and concrete knowledge of
specific injury. The vagueness causes it to be correlated to insanity.
Britt, putting his belated aspirations to the test, hoped that nobody
would presume to hit on that sore spot. He knew that such an adventure
might be dangerous for the person or persons who went up against him.

He buttoned his overcoat, settled the cigar rigidly into one corner of
his mouth, stared with approval at the stone image of himself in the
facade of Britt Block, and walked to the edge of the porch.

Across the street sat a little building above the door of which was a
sign inscribed, "Usial Britt, Shoemaker." That it was a dwelling as well
as a shop was indicated when a bare and hairy arm was thrust from a side
window and the refuse in a smoking iron spider was dumped upon the
snow. Simultaneously it was shown that more than one person tenanted the
building: a man, bareheaded, but with a shaggy mat of roached hair that
served in lieu of a hat, issued from the door. The wanton luxuriance of
the hair would have stirred envy in any baldheaded man; but Tasper Britt
exhibited a passion that was more virulent than envy.

The man who came forth was "Prophet Elias." It was the newcomer, the
religious fanatic, the exhorter against oppression of the people by
usury, the fearless declaimer who named Tasper Britt in diatrib