eighty-five dollars. Skiddy wondered ruefully whether Washington would
ever indorse this arrangement, but in his desperation he couldn't see
that he had any other choice. He would simply _make_ Washington indorse
it. It was with great relief that he saw the captain's departure from a
corner of his bedroom window, and felt that, for the moment, at least,
he had a welcome respite from all his perplexities.

He put a captain and crew on board the _James H. Peabody_, and packed
her back to San Francisco, at the same time apprising the State
Department by mail, and begging that a telegraphic answer might be sent
him in respect to Satterlee's imprisonment, and the expense it had
necessarily entailed. He calculated that the telegram would catch an
outgoing man-of-war that was shortly due. The consular salary was two
hundred dollars a month, and if the eighty-five dollars for Satterlee
was disallowed, the sum was indubitably bound to sink to one hundred and
fifteen dollars. Deducting a further fifty, which little Skiddy was in
the habit of remitting to his mother, a widow in narrow circumstances,
and behold his income reduced to sixty-five a month! It was hardly
surprising, therefore, that Skiddy waited on pins and needles for the
Department's reply.

In the course of weeks it came.

_Skiddy U S consul apia samoa satterlee case the department
authorizes charge for food, but none for custody or lodging,
bronson assistant secretary._

This was a staggering blow. It definitely placed his salary at
ninety-five dollars. He sat down and wrote a stinging letter to the
Department, inclosing snapshot pictures of the jail, the prisoners, the
huts, and other things that cannot be described here. It evolved an
acrimonious reply, in which he was bidden to be more respectful. He was
at liberty (the dispatch continued), if he thought it advisable as an
act of private charity, to maintain the convict Satterlee in a
comfortable cottage, but the Department insisted that it should be at
his (Skiddy's) expense. The Department itself advocated the jail. If the
situation were as disgraceful as he described it, ought not the onus be
put on the Samoan Government, and thus place the Department in a
position "to make strong representations through the usual diplomatic
channels"?

"But in the meantime what would happen to Satterlee?" returned the
consul in official language, across six thousand miles of sea and land.

"You are re