erference in family
matters, it seemed, and had been tartly reminded of those ideas by Usial
Britt himself.

But Vaniman was an outlander. He saw his employer disgracing himself; he
beheld an unresisting victim cruelly maltreated.

The young man jumped on Tasper Britt and tried to hold his arms. When
Britt whirled and broke loose by the twist of his quick turn and struck
the cashier with the whip, Vaniman wrested away the weapon, using all
his vigorous strength, and threw it far. Then he seized the frothing
assailant and forced him back toward the tavern. "Mr. Britt, remember
what you are--the president of our bank--a prominent man--" Vaniman
gasped, protesting. "When you're yourself you'll thank me!"

But there was no sign of gratitude in Britt's countenance just then. His
crazed rage was shifted to this presumptuous person who had interfered
and was manhandling him; at that moment the liveliest emotion in Britt
was the mordant jealousy that he had been trying to stifle. It awoke and
raged, finding real excuse for the venting of its rancor on the man who
had made him jealous.

"You damnation spawn of a jailbird--"

The young man had a rancor of his own that he had been holding in leash
ever since he had sent Vona to fight her own battle, with his kiss
on her cheek. He broke off that vitriolic taunt by dealing Britt an
open-handed slap across the mouth, a blow of such force that the man
went reeling backward. And when Britt beheld Vaniman's face, as the
young man came resolutely along, the magnate of Egypt kept going
backward of his own accord, flapping hands of protest. "Vaniman, here
and now I discharge you from the bank."

"Mr. Britt, that's a matter for the vote of the directors--and I'll wait
to hear from them."

Vaniman whirled from Britt, for the impulse was in him to smash his
doubled fist into that hateful visage; his palm still itched; the
open-handed buffet had not satisfied the tingling nerves of that hand.

Usial Britt had not hurried about raising himself from his crouching
position. He was standing with his apron over his head and faced the
citizens. He was smiling--an irradiating, genial, triumphant sort of
smile! One might readily have taken him for the victor in a contest!

Spokesman Jones gulped. "We came--we was intending--but this
hoop-te-doo--"

Usial beamed blandly and helped out Mr. Jones's efforts to express his
intentions. "Yes, Brother Jones, it was quite a shower while it lasted.