"Well, what country are you a subject of?"

"Truly ah cahn't say, boss."

"Well what nationality was your father?"

"Ah neveh see him, sah." "Well then where the devil did you first
land after you were born?"

"'Deed ah cahn't say, boss. T'ink it were one o' dem islands.
Reckon ah's a subjec' o' de' worl', boss."

Weeks afterward the population of Uncle Sam's ten by fifty-mile
strip of tropics was found to have been on February first, 1912,
62,810. No, anxious reader, I am not giving away inside
information; the source of my remarks is the public prints. Of
these about 25,000 were British subjects (West Indian negroes with
very few exceptions). Of the entire population 37,428 were
employed by the U. S. government. Of white Americans, of the
Brahmin caste of the "gold" roll, there were employed on the Zone
but 5,228,





CHAPTER V


Police headquarters presented an unusual air of preoccupation next