When Egypt Went Broke

When Egypt Went Broke, by
Holman Day

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Title: When Egypt Went Broke
Author: Holman Day
Release Date: December, 2003 [Etext #4733] [Yes, we are more than

one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 10,
2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
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EGYPT WENT BROKE ***

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WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE
A NOVEL
BY
HOLMAN DAY

WHEN EGYPT WENT BROKE
CHAPTER I
T. BRITT STARTS TO COLLECT
Tasper Britt arose in the gray dawn, as usual.
Some fishermen, seeking bait, stay up late and "jack" angleworms with
a bull's-eye light. The big worms are abroad on the soil under cover of
the darkness. Other fishermen get up early and dig while the dew is

holding the smaller worms near the surface of the ground; in going
after worms the shrewd operator makes the job easy for himself.
Tasper Britt--"Twelve-per-cent Britt"--trimmed his slumber at both
ends--was owl and early bird, both, in his pursuit of the pence of the
people, and got 'em coming and going.
He was the money boss for the town of Egypt, and those who did not
give him his per cent nickname called him "Phay-ray-oh"--but behind
his back, of course. To his face his debt slaves bespoke his favor
obsequiously. Seeing that nearly every "Egyptian" with collateral owed
him money, Mr. Britt had no fault to find with his apparent popularity.
He did believe, complacently, that he was popular. A man who was less
sure of himself would not have dared to appear out, all at once, with his
beard dyed purple-black and with a scratch wig to match. Men gasped
when they came into his office in Britt Block, but men held their faces
measurably under control even though their diaphragms fluttered; the
need of renewing a note--paying a bonus for the privilege--helped
supplicants to hold in any bubbling hilarity. Therefore, Mr. Britt
continued to be assured that he was pretty generally all right, so far as
the folks of Egypt were concerned.
Mr. Britt dyed after Hittie died. That was when he was past sixty- five.
It was only the familiar, oft-repeated instance of temperament being
jounced out of a lifelong rut by a break in wedlock relations.
Hittie was his yoke-mate, pulling hard at his side with wages of food
and drink. The two of them kept plodding steadily in the dry and rocky
road all the years, never lifting their eyes to look over into pastures
forbidden. Perhaps if Hittie had been left with the money, after the
yoke had been sundered, she would have kicked up her heels in a few
final capers of consolation, in order to prove to herself, by brief
experience, how much better consistent sainthood was as a settled state.
In view of such a possibility--and widows are not altogether different
from widowers--it was hardly fair in the folks of Egypt to twist every
act of Widower Britt to his discredit and to make him out a renegade of

a relict. He did go through all the accepted motions as a mourner. He
took on "something dreadful" at the funeral. He placed in the cemetery
lot a granite statue of himself, in a frock coat of stone and holding a
stone plug hat in the hook of the elbow. That statue cost Tasper Britt
rising sixteen hundred dollars--and after he dyed his beard and bought
the top piece of hair, the satirists of Egypt were unkind enough to say
that he had set his stone image out in the graveyard to scare Hittie if
she tried to arise and spy on his new carryings-on.
Mr. Britt had continued to be a consistent mourner, according to the
old-fashioned conventions.
When he arose in the dawn of the day with which