rst time my wages were shy I went to
the palace and told him if he didn't come across I'd shut off the juice.
I think he was so stunned at anybody asking him for real money that
while he was still stunned he opened his safe and handed me two thousand
francs. I think he did it more in admiration for my nerve than because
he owed it. The next time pay-day arrived, and the pay did not, I didn't
go to the palace. I just went to bed, and the lights went to bed, too.
You may remember?" The consul snorted indignantly.

"I was holding three queens at the time," he protested. "Was it YOU did
that?"

"It was," said Billy. "The police came for me to start the current going
again, but I said I was too ill. Then the president's own doctor came,
old Gautier, and Gautier examined me with a lantern and said that in
Hayti my disease frequently proved fatal, but he thought if I turned on
the lights I might recover. I told him I was tired of life, anyway, but
that if I could see three thousand francs it might give me an incentive.
He reported back to the president and the three thousand francs arrived
almost instantly, and a chicken broth from Ham's own chef, with His
Excellency's best wishes for the recovery of the invalid. My recovery
was instantaneous, and I switched on the lights.

"I had just moved into the Widow Ducrot's hotel that week, and her
daughter Claire wouldn't let me eat the broth. I thought it was because,
as she's a dandy cook herself, she was professionally jealous. She put
the broth on the top shelf of the pantry and wrote on a piece of paper,
'Gare!' But the next morning a perfectly good cat, who apparently
couldn't read, was lying beside it dead."

The consul frowned reprovingly.

"You should not make such reckless charges," he protested. "I would call
it only a coincidence."

"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 De