"What is that?" enquired the director.
"Compensation," I smiled.
"Two hundred pesos a month," said Mr. White with a laugh. This amount is equivalent to one hundred dollars.
"That is satisfactory," I concluded and was conducted into the department where I was to work. Now that I had the job I at once began to figure out how to get rid of it when the time came. A few minutes before I had been wondering how I was going to get it.
An Old Church in Manila
The Bureau of Education is one of the main divisions of the Insular Government and employs nearly two thousand men and women, the large majority of whom are scattered throughout the Islands as teachers. The head office in Manila has about one hundred and twenty on its staff, and these are divided among several departments. The Division of Publications and Industrial Information was the title of the department in which I was to work and my duties consisted of issuing bulletins, editing text-books, publishing the Philippine Craftsman (a monthly magazine of the Bureau) and preparing the annual report. This last embodied about fifty financial and statistical tables and twenty or more graphic charts showing the work accomplished by the Bureau during the year. This annual report turned out to be the main part of my duties and I was assisted by eight Filipinos who compiled most of the tables under my supervision. As the Governor-General of the Islands put in a rush order for this report my assistants and I were compelled to work until eleven o'clock each evening for about a month.
Immediately on his arrival in Manila Richardson started to look for a job. The first day, he met a friend from the Hawaiian Islands who was in the Philippines representing the Honolulu Planters' Association in obtaining Filipino labourers for the sugar plantations in Hawaii. This man said he would have a position open in a few weeks. Richardson informed him that he could not wait and would have to get something at once. The Hawaiian planter then agreed to take an option on his time at thirty dollars a week until a vacancy occurred. Richardson accepted this and remained in Manila to await developments.