BILLY AND THE BIG
STICK吊篮操作规程
Richard Harding Davis
Had the Wilmot Electric Light people remained content only to make light, had they not, as a by-product, attempted to make money, they need not have left Hayti.
When they flooded with radiance the unpaved streets of Port- au-Prince no one, except the police, who complained that the lights kept them awake, made objection; but when for this illumination the Wilmot Company demanded payment, every one up to President Hamilear Pousvain was surprid and grieved. So grieved was President Ham, as he was lovingly designated, that he withdrew the Wilmot concession, surrounded the power-hou with his barefooted army, and in a proclamation announced that for the future the furnishing of electric light would be a monopoly of the government.
In Hayti, as soon as it begins to make money, any industry, native or foreign, becomes a monopoly of the government. The thing works automatically. It is what in Hayti is understood as BAUTE FINANCE. The Wilmot people should have known that. Becau they did not as vice-consul, law and order were a
s solidly established as the stone jetties, and by contrast the eccentricities of the Black REPUBLIC baffled and distresd him.
"It can't be that you blackmail the president," said the consul, "becau I understand he boasts he has committed all the known crimes.
"And veral he invented," agreed Billy.
"And you can't do it with a gun, becau they tell me the president isn't afraid of anything except a voodoo priestess. What is your cret?" coaxed the consul. "If you'll only ll it, I know veral Powers that would give you your price. Billy smiled modestly.
"It's very simple," he said. "The first 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 becau 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
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remember?" The consul snorted indignantly.
蝴蝶兰的寓意"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 dia 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 e 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 becau, as she's a dandy cook herlf, 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."
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墙面裂缝怎么修补
"You can call it what you plea," 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 cret process, and that only a trained Wilmot man could work them. And I pointed out to him if he dismisd 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 impresd 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, becau he was going to have me shot at sunt."
"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 rious complications."
"That was what I was trying to avoid," said Billy. "Don't you call being shot at sunt a rious complication? Or would that be just a coincidence, too? You're a hell of a consul!"
Since his talk with the reprentative of his country four months had pasd 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 incread 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 becau he loved Hayti, but becau since he went to lodge at the cafe of the Widow Ducrot, he had learned to love her daughter Claire, and Claire loved him.
图片明星On the two thousand dollars due him from Ham they plotted to marry. This was not as great an adventure as it might appear. Billy knew that from the Wilmot people he always was sure of a salary, and one which, with such an excellent houkeeper as was Claire, would support them both. But wit
袁子轩h his two thousand dollars as capital they could afford to plunge; they could go upon a honeymoon; they need not dread a rainy day, and, what was of greatest importance, they need not delay. There was good reason against delay, for the hand of the beautiful Claire was already promid. The Widow Ducrot had promid it to Paillard, he of the prosperous commission business, the prominent EMBONPOINT, and four children. Monsieur Paillard possd an establishment of his own, but it
核桃的做法大全was a villa in the suburbs; and so, each day at noon, for his DEJEUNE he left his office and crosd the street to the Cafe Ducrot. For five years this had been his habit. At first it was the widow's cooking that attracted him, then for a time the widow herlf; but when from the convent Claire came to assist her mother in the cafe, and when from a lanky, big- eyed, long-legged child she grew into a slim, joyous, and charming young woman, she alone was the attraction, and the Widower Paillard decided to make her his wife. Other men had made the same decision; and when it was announced that between Claire and the widower a marriage had been "arranged," the clerks in the foreign commission hous and the agents of the steamship lines drowned their sorrow in rum and ran the hou flags to half-staff. Paillard himlf took the propod alliance calmly. He was not an impetuous suitor. With Widow Ducrot he agreed that Claire was still too young to marry, and to himlf kept the fact that to remarry he was in no haste. In his mind doubts still lingered. With a wife, young enough t
o be one of his children, disorganizing, the routine of his villa, would it be any more comfortable than he now found it? Would his eldest daughter and her stepmother dwell together in harmony? The eldest daughter had assured him that so far as she was concerned they would not; and, after all, in marrying a girl, no matter how charming, without a dot, and the daughter of a boarding-hou keeper, no matter how respectable, was he not disposing of himlf too cheaply? The doubts assailed Papa Paillard; the speculations were in his mind. And while he speculated Billy acted.
"I know that in France," Billy assured Claire, "marriages are arranged by the parents; but in my country they are arranged in heaven. And who are we to disregard the edicts of heaven? Ages and ages ago, before the flood, before Napoleon, even before old Paillard with his four children, it was arranged in heaven that you were to marry me. So, what little plans your good mother may make don't cut enough ice to cool a green mint. Now, we can't try to get married here," continued Billy, "without your mother and Paillard knowing it. In this town as many people have to sign the marriage, contract as signed our Declaration of Independence: all the civil authorities, all the clergy, all the relatives; if every man in the telephone book isn't a witness, the marriage doesn't 'take.' So, we must
