302 JOURNEY WITHOUT MAPS

He was complying with a custom; one could see that
he would be glad to go back to bed. He had had a
finer fling than most Liberian Presidents: banquets
in Sierra Leone, royal salutes from the gunboat in the
harbour, a reception at Buckingham Palace, a turn
at the tables at Monte Carlo. He stood with his arm
round his pretty wife's shoulders on his stoep while I
photographed him, a black Cincinnatus back on his
farm.

A Cabinet Minister

The Secretary of the Treasury belonged to a newer,
more scrupulous Liberia just coming into existence.
He, too, had travelled to Geneva and the United
States. Plump, well-dressed, with soft sad spectacled
eyes, he had a dignity upknown to the Creole of an
English colony. There were no prefects to laugh at
him, he laughed at himself, softly, without emphasis,
for being honest, for caring for other things than
politics, for letting slip so many of the crap-game
chances. Mr. King had built himself houses and
bought himself a rubber plantation; all the Secretary
had bought was a little speed-boat in which to play
about in the Monrovian delta among the mangrove
swamps.

He lived in a little brick villa on grassy Broad
Street; he was a bachelor; and when he gave us tea
it was served by young clerks from the Treasury
Department He had dressed himself for the occasion
(there was to be a little music) in an open-necked shte
and a large artistic tie. He was like a black Mr,
Pickwick with a touch of Shelley. After tea we went