This process in Busati was called pre-guilt payment, a revolutionary system of justice.

In Baltimore the same process was called graft.

"Boy, get in here," yelled Lippincott. "There's no water."

"Yes, Bwana," came the voice from the hallway followed by a black, perspiring man in loose white shirt, loose white pants and a pair of cracked plastic shoes—which made him one of the richer men of his village ten miles up the Busati. "Walla here to serve you, Bwana."

"Get me some fucking water, nigger," said Lippincott, snapping a towel in Walla's face.

"Yes, Bwana," said Walla, scurrying from the room.

When Lippincott had come to Busati, he fully intended to respect the proud African traditions and search for old forgotten ones. But he found quickly that this politeness earned him only derision, and besides, as the Minister of Public Safety had said:

"Bush niggers need beatings, Mr. Lippincott. Not like you and me. I know it's against our laws for a white to hit a black nowadays, but between civilized men like you and me, the only way to treat a bush native is to thrash him. They're not like us Hausa. They're not even Loni, God help them. Just poor mongrels."

It was then that James Forsythe Lippincott learned of pre-guilt payments and, as he handed over two hundred-dollar bills to the Minister of Public ^Safety, was promised, "If any of these boys give you trouble, just let me know their names. You won't see them around anymore."

In Baltimore, James Forsythe Lippincott was careful to call the maids by their marital title and last name, and to promote blacks to executive positions in the family company he ran, but in Busati he did as the Busatians. It was the only way to get things done, he told himself, and he did not even suspect how much he truly liked this method of beatings and brutality, in preference to the enlightened Baltimore way where every problem was solved by holding another seminar in race relations.