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