172 IN BRIGHTEST AFRICA 
also free to carry those ideas wherever they could do 
the most good. If I had had to comply with the red 
tape of army officialdom, not only would my own 
work have been handicapped, but also the ideas and 
troubles of the private actually handling the machine 
might never have gone past his sergeant. When the 
armistice was signed, I was planning to go overseas to 
observe the difficulties that the men were having at 
the front, so that I narrowly escaped the khaki. 
Whatever my services may or may not have con- 
tributed to the defeat of the Germans, at least I have 
escaped the accusation directed toward many a dollar- 
a-year man of being overpaid. The usual dollar-a- 
year man, though the dollar was never paid him, re- 
ceived his expenses, while my contract called for 
a salary of ten dollars per day without expense 
money. My original agreement was to include ex- 
penses, but some slip was made which always seemed 
too dificult to correct. This arrangement made my, 
loss even greater than that of those men who re- 
ceived the fabulous amount prescribed by law, for 
needless to say my weekly stipend was inadequate 
to cover the one item of railway fare. Still one had 
to serve to be happy in those days, no matter what 
the cost. Inasmuch as the Akeley camera also lost 
heavily on war contracts, I have had the additional 
satisfaction of escaping governmental investigation 
on the score of excess profits. After it was all over, I 
ungrudgingly paid the normal tax on the money I had 
lost, and I would not swap those months with the 
Government for anything else in my experience. 
