“You can call it what you please,” said Billy, “but it won’t bring the cat back. Anyway, the next time I went to the palace to collect, the president was ready for me. He said he’d been taking out information, and he found if I shut off the lights again he could hire another man in the States to turn them on. I told him he’d been deceived. I told him the Wilmot Electric Lights were produced by a secret process, and that only a trained Wilmot man could work them. And I pointed out to him if he dismissed me it wasn’t likely the Wilmot people would loan him another expert; not while they were fighting him through the courts and the State Department. That impressed the old man; so I issued my ultimatum. I said if he must have electric lights he must have me, too. Whether he liked it or not, mine was a life job.”
“What did he say to that?” gasped the new consul.
“Said it wasn’t a life job, because he was going to have me shot at sunset.”
“Then you said?”
“I said if he did that there wouldn’t be any electric lights, and you would bring a warship and shoot Hayti off the map.”
The new consul was most indignant.
“You had no right to say that!” he protested. “You did very ill. My instructions are to avoid all serious complications.”
“That was what I was trying to avoid,” said Billy. “Don’t you call being shot at sunset a serious complication? Or would that be just a coincidence, too? You’re a hellofa consul!”
Since his talk with the representative of his country four months had passed and Billy still held his job. But each month the number of francs he was able to wrest from President Hamilcar dwindled, and were won only after verbal conflicts that each month increased in violence.
To the foreign colony it became evident that, in the side of President Ham, Billy was a thorn, sharp, irritating, virulent, and that at any moment Ham might pluck that thorn and Billy would leave Hayti in haste, and probably in hand-cuffs. This was evident to Billy, also, and the prospect was most disquieting. Not because he loved Hayti, but because since he went to lodge at the cafe of the Widow Ducrot, he had learned to love her daughter Claire, and Claire loved him.