296 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

in Monrovia at a reduced salary with nothing to do
but shoot at bottles and hit billiard balls.

A flare-up of nervous irritation occurred a short
while before my visit. The chauffeur of the French
Consul had committed some offence, and an ignorant
policeman who knew nothing about diplomatic
immunities followed the servant into the Consulate
and tried to arrest him. The Consul threw the man
out, put on his diplomatic uniform and went down
to the State building to demand from the Secretary
of State an official apology from the Government, The
Minister, young earnest Mr. Simpson, was quite pre-
pared to apologise himself, but he refused to apologise
on behalf of the Government. The whole affair would
have been comic if it had not been a little tragic,
for it showed to what absurdity, to what frayed
nerves, the scorching damp, the bare exile, the shoot-
ing of bottles on Saturday evenings, the whistling
loudspeakers lead. The French Consul went up the
hill to the wireless station, which is riin by a French
company, and sent a message to a French gunboat
he knew was passing down the coast. The gunboat
anchored off Monrovia, the captain came ashore in a
surf boat and the two solemn uniformed Frenchmen
returned to Mr. Simpson's office. The captain laid
his sword on Mr. Simpson's desk and said it would
remain there until the Consul received an apology
from the Government. The apology was given, the
gunboat steamed away. I don't know what happened
to the policeman.

Quite outside this strained, dreary and yet kindly
life, at the end of several hours' rough driving from
theo capital, live the Firestone men in houses con-