“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 Egypt's Pharaoh.