Billy and the Big Stick | Page 6

inquired Billy.
The stranger produced an impressive-looking document covered with seals.
"Contract with the president," he said. I've taken over your job. You better get out quiet," he advised, "as they've given me a squad of nigger policemen to see that you do."
"Are you aware that these works are the property of the Wilmot Company?" asked Billy, "and that if anything went wrong here they'd hold you responsible?" The stranger smiled complacently.
"I've run plants," he said, "that make these lights look like a stable lantern on a foggy night."
"In that case," assented Billy, "should anything happen, you'll know exactly what to do, and I can leave you in charge without feeling the least anxiety."
"That's just what you can do," the stranger agreed heartily," and you can't do it too quick!" From the desk he took Billy's favorite pipe and loaded it from Billy's tobacco-jar. But when Billy had reached the door he called to him. "Before you go, son," he said "you might give me a tip about this climate. I never been in the tropics. It's kind of unhealthy, ain't it?"
His expression was one of concern.
"If you hope to keep alive," began Billy, "there are two things to avoid----" The stranger laughed knowingly.
"I got you!" he interrupted. "You're going to tell me to cut out wine and women."
"I was going to tell you, " said Billy, "to cut out hoping to collect any wages and to avoid every kind of soup."
From the power-house Billy went direct to the palace. His anxiety was great. Now that Claire had consented to leave Hayti, the loss of his position did not distress him. But the possible loss of his back pay would be a catastrophe. He had hardly enough money to take them both to New York, and after they arrived none with which to keep them alive. Before the Wilmot Company could find a place for him a month might pass, and during that month they might starve. If he went alone and arranged for Claire to follow, he might lose her. Her mother might marry her to Paillard; Claire might fall ill; without him at her elbow to keep her to their purpose the voyage to an unknown land might require more courage than she possessed. Billy saw it was imperative they should depart together, and to that end he must have his two thousand dollars. The money was justly his. For it he had sweated and slaved; had given his best effort. And so, when he faced the president, he was in no conciliatory mood. Neither was the president.
By what right, he demanded, did this foreigner affront his ears with demands for money; how dared he force his way into his presence and to his face babble of back pay? It was insolent, incredible. With indignation the president set forth the position of the government : Billy had been discharged and, with the appointment of his successor, the stranger in the derby hat, had ceased to exist. The government could not pay money to some one who did not exist. All indebtedness to Billy also had ceased to exist. The account had been wiped out. Billy had been wiped out. The big negro, with the chest and head of a gorilla, tossed his kinky white curls so violently that the ringlets danced. Billy, he declared, had been a pest; a fly that buzzed and buzzed and disturbed his slumbers. And now when the fly thought he slept he had caught and crushed it-so. President Ham clinched his great fist convulsively and, with delight in his pantomime, opened his fingers one by one, and held out his pink palm, wrinkled and crossed like the hand of a washerwoman, as though to show Billy that in it lay the fly, dead.
"C'EST UNE CHOSE JUGEE!" thundered the president. He reached for his quill pen.
But Billy, with Claire in his heart, with the injustice of it rankling in his mind, did not agree.
"It is not an affair closed," shouted Billy in his best French. "It is an affair international, diplomatic; a cause for war!"
Believing he had gone mad, President Ham gazed at him speechless.
"From here I go to the cable Office, "shouted Billy. "I cable for a warship! If, by to-night, I am not paid my money, marines will surround our power-house, and the Wilmot people will back me up, and my government will back me up!"
It was, so Billy thought, even as he launched it, a tirade satisfying and magnificent. But in his turn the president did not agree.
He rose. He was a large man. Billy wondered he had not previously noticed how very large he was.
"To-night at nine o'clock," he said, "the German boat departs for New York." As though aiming a pistol, he raised his arm and at Billy pointed a finger.