Billy and the Big Stick — Inside the Classic

A Salary Dispute and a New England Conscience

The early pages establish Billy's predicament through concrete details. He is the only white official in President Ham's government, treated with courtesy but not punctuality when it comes to pay. The narrator explains that in Haiti, any profitable industry "becomes a monopoly of the government"—a system described as haute finance. Billy's New England background is emphasized: he has worked for every penny since carrying pliers in a leg pocket during gales. This backstory makes his current situation—owed wages by a government that sees payment as optional—both absurd and personally galling. The reader is positioned to see Billy as competent and principled, trapped in a system that rewards neither.

The King of the Movies Arrives

A middle excerpt introduces a new character: St. Clair, a movie actor known as "the King of the Movies," who is in Santo Domingo to film a war picture. He describes his role as Lieutenant Hardy, U.S.A., leading an attack on a fortress, with a flag-bearer shot in the surf. Billy's reaction is immediate and practical: "You got a uniform?" he demands. When St. Clair reveals he has three, made to regulation, Billy's interest becomes "excited." The actor's presence gives Billy an idea. The contrast between St. Clair's theatrical version of military heroism and Billy's real-world predicament sets up the story's central scheme. Billy's question about the uniform is the first hint of his plan to use appearance as leverage.

Cabling for a Warship

Billy's next move is a telephone call to the field-marshal in charge of the cable office. The field-marshal is agitated: a warship, the Louisiana, has been sighted approaching under forced draft, and President Ham is "grieved, indignant." Billy calmly explains that he cabled the Secretary of State, who relayed the message to Guantanamo. When the field-marshal warns that the president is disturbed, Billy replies, "Tell him when the bombardment begins I will see that the palace is outside the zone of fire." This line reveals Billy's confidence and his willingness to bluff. The excerpt shows him orchestrating events from a cafe, using the cable office as a tool of psychological warfare. His tone is playful but calculated.

The Uniform and the Audience

In the final excerpt, Billy returns to St. Clair's room with news: he has arranged an audience with President Ham, and insists the actor wear his full-dress uniform as Lieutenant Hardy. Billy's enthusiasm is now "almost affectionate." He tells St. Clair, "I'VE FIXED IT!" and explains that the president wants to meet him in makeup, just as he will appear on screen. Billy's private comment—"Of course, he's only an ignorant negro, but on Broadway they don't know that"—reveals the racial condescension underlying his scheme. The scene sets up a confrontation where costume and performance will be used to deceive the president. The reader is left to wonder whether the bluff will succeed, and how the arriving warship fits into Billy's plan.

Davis builds the story around a single, clever premise: a man owed money uses the props of American military power—a uniform, a cable, a battleship—to collect. The excerpts show Billy as a resourceful pragmatist, not a hero. Readers should watch how the author balances farce with tension, and how the uniform of a movie lieutenant becomes more effective than any real authority. The story's brevity (under 11,000 words) rewards attention to its layered ironies about empire, performance, and the gap between appearance and power.

Reading Billy and the Big Stick, I was struck by how idleness and earnest bluster can overlap so strangely. Billy’s makeshift authority in Haiti reminded me of the slow, wandering conversations in The Lazy Tour of Two Idle Apprentices — Inside the Classic—not because of adventure, but because both stories let mismatched men stumble through their own half-serious schemes, with time feeling wonderfully unaccountable.