reached for the scepter, though he had not loosed his grip on the gouge.
You will know him here and hereafter by his everlasting grip on the
gouge. He will take that gouge to Tophet with him. Then it will be
heated red-hot and he will prance around hell astraddle of it. But in
the meantime he is hot after the honors of this world. Give him his
crown, say we. He has prepared a nice, new hair mattress on his brow
where the diadem will rest easy. Under his coat of arms--to wit, a
yellow he-goat rampant in a field of purple thistles--let him write the
word 'Victory.'"

The men in that room were Yankees, with a sense of humor as keen as a
new bush scythe.

The Squire sat back and wiped his spectacles and beamed on their
laughter. Then he read on down the column, through the biting satire to
the bitter end, having an audience whose hilarity would have delighted a
vaudeville performer's soul.

Therefore, it was with inspired unction that the reader delivered the
"tag lines" of the screed.

"We confess that we have a selfish purpose in paying this affectionate,
brotherly tribute to Pharaoh. When he has deigned to refer to us in
the past he has called us 'Useless' Britt. Now, if this tribute has the
effect that we devoutly hope for, Pharaoh may be of a mind to give us
back our right name. We ask nothing else in the way of recompense."

The Squire folded the paper carefully and put it away in his breast
pocket with the manner of one caching a treasure. "Boys, what are you
waiting for?" he inquired, with an affectation of surprise.

Their wide grins narrowed into the creases of wonderment of their own.

Hexter patted his breast where he had stowed away the paper. "Egypt has
a literary light, a journalist who wields a pen of power, a shoemaker
philosopher. And modest--not grasping! See how little he asks for
himself. Why not give him a real present? Why not--"

Spokesman Jones perceived what the counsel was aiming at and
ecstatically shouted, "Gid-dap!"

"Why not use real sandpaper?" urged the squire, with innocent mildness.

Jones whirled and drove his delegation ahead of him from the room, both
hands upraised, fingers and thumbs snapping loud cracks as if he were
urging his horses up Burkett Hill with snapping whip. The men went
tramping down the outside stairs, bellowing the first honest-to-goodness
laughter that Egypt had heard for many a day.

Squire Hexter leaped up and grabbed his hat and coat from their ho