THE HOME FROM HOME 57

one in Sierra Leone had been able to tell me any-
thing. It was a good story because it didn't go too
far and tell too much, because it had not merely a
plot but a subject; it cast a light in so many direc-
tions, the satiric, the social, the psychological; one
only had to wait for one's own experience to add
colour and facts, though I was almost afraid to
find C., lest the vivid outline should be marred by
detail.

It was useless in Sierra Leone to ask for information
about the Republic. No one had been across; any
traffic there was came from the other side. President
King, who had been forced to resign soon afterwards
by the disclosures of the League of Nations Com-
mission of Inquiry, had visited Sierra Leone a few
years back. He was received with royal honours;
there were banquets and receptions, guns were fired
the royal number of rounds. What the President
never knew was that he had been used as a dummy
for the Prince of Wales, who visited the colony soon
afterwards; the salutes had been rehearsed, the com-
mittees had tried out their arrangements on him.
Later he came up to Bo on his way home. He had
planned to go back by land from the boundary,
escorted by his troops; it wasn't safe for a President to
make his way through the tribes he ruled without
two hundred soldiers to guard him. There was a
dinner in his honour; it went well to the end; there
were the usual toasts; but when the President rose
there was an interruption. The Colonel Commandant
of the Republic's Frontier Force was having a good
time. "Sit down, Mr. President," he said. "I want
some more brandies and sodas."