n 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.

Tasper Britt walked out into it from the door of Files's tavern.

He had just been talking to the landlord about the tavern diet. His
language was vitriolic. Even Vaniman could not have used more bitter
words to express his detestation for soap as a comestible.

Britt's heat in the matter, the manner in which he had plunged into
the diatribe all of a sudden, astonished Mr. Files tremendously. Britt
seemed to be acting out a part, he was so violent. Usually, Britt did
not waste any of the heat in his cold nature unless he had a good
reason for the expenditure. There seemed to be something else than mere
dyspepsia concerned, so Files thought. He followed Mr. Britt and called
to him from the door. Britt had stopped to light his cigar.

"I've had my say. I'm all done here. Let that end it," declared the
departing guest.

There were listeners, the usual after-dinner loafers of the tavern's
purlieus. Mr. Britt did not seem to mind them. He even looked about, as
if to make sure of their numbers.

"All you needed to do was to complain in a genteel way, and I would have
been just as genteel in rectifying," pleaded Files.

"The people of this town are still sayin