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
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."