No one moved. No one spoke. What terrible threat had hit him President Ham could not guess. He did not ask. Stiffly, like a man in a trance, he turned to the rusty iron safe behind his chair and spun the handle. When again he faced them he held a long envelope which he presented to Billy.
“There are the ten thousand francs,” he said. “Ask him if he is satisfied, and demand that he go at once!”
Billy turned to St. Clair.
“He says,” translated Billy, “he’s very much obliged and hopes we will come again. Now,” commanded Billy, “bow low and go out facing him. We don’t want him to shoot us in the back!”
Bowing to the president, the actor threw at Billy a glance full of indignation. “Was I as BAD as that?” he demanded.
On schedule time Billy drove up to the Hotel Ducrot and relinquished St. Clair to the ensign in charge of the launch from the LOUISIANA. At sight of St. Clair in the regalia of a superior officer, that young gentleman showed his surprise.
“I’ve been giving a ‘command’ performance for the president,” explained the actor modestly. “I recited for him, and, though I spoke in English, I think I made quite a hit.”
“You certainly,” Billy assured him gratefully, “made a terrible hit with me.”
As the moving-picture actors, escorted by the ensign, followed their trunks to the launch, Billy looked after them with a feeling of great loneliness. He was aware that from the palace his carriage had been followed; that drawn in a cordon around the hotel negro policemen covertly observed him. That President Ham still hoped to recover his lost prestige and his lost money was only too evident.
It was just five minutes to eight.