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leopard resided in its claws.
    “Have they given you a job yet?” the chairman asked Obi over the music. In Nigeria the government was “they.” It had nothing to do with you or me. It was an alien institution and people’s business was to get as much from it as they could without getting into trouble.
    “Not yet. I’m attending an interview on Monday.”
    “Of course those of you who know book will not have any difficulty,” said the Vice-President on Obi’s left. “Otherwise I would have suggested seeing some of the men beforehand.”
    “It would not be necessary,” said the President, “since they would be mostly white men.”
    “You think white men don’t eat bribe? Come to our department. They eat more than black men nowadays.”
    After the reception Joseph took Obi to have dinner at the “Palm Grove.” It was a neat little place, not very popular on Saturday nights, when Lagosians wanted a more robust kind of enjoyment. There were a handful of people in the lounge—a dozen or so Europeans and three Africans.
    “Who owns this place?”
    “I think a Syrian. They own everything in Lagos,” said Joseph.
    They sat at one of the empty tables at the corner and then noticed that they were directly under a ceiling fan and moved to another table. Soft light came from large globes around which insects danced furiously. Perhaps they did not notice that each globe carried a large number of bodies which, like themselves, had danced once upon a time. Or if they noticed, they did not care.
    “Service!” called Joseph importantly, and a steward appeared in white tunic and trousers, a red cummerbund and red fez. “What will you have?” he asked Obi. The steward bent forward waiting.
    “Really, I don’t think I want to drink anything more.”
    “Nonsense. The day is still young. Have a cold beer.”
    He turned to the steward. “Two Heinekens.”
    “Oh, no. One will do. Let’s share one.”
    “Two Heinekens,” repeated Joseph, and the steward went to the bar and soon returned with two bottles on a tray.
    “Do they serve Nigerian food here?”
    Joseph was surprised at the question. No decent restaurant served Nigerian food. “Do you want Nigerian food?”
    “Of course. I have been dying to eat pounded yams and bitter-leaf soup. In England we made do with semolina, but it isn’t the same thing.”
    “I must ask my boy to prepare you pounded yams tomorrow afternoon.”
    “Good man!” said Obi, brightening up considerably. Then he added in English for the benefit of the European group that sat at the next table: “I am sick of boilèd potatoes.” By calling them boilèd he hoped he had put into it all the disgust he felt.
    A white hand gripped his chair behind. He turned quickly and saw it was the old manageress holding on to chairs to support her unsteady progress. She must have been well over seventy, if not eighty. She toddled across the lounge and behind the counter. Then she came out again holding a shivering glass of milk.
    “Who left that duster there?” she said, pointing a shaking left-hand finger at a yellow rag on the floor.
    “I no know,” said the steward who had been addressed.
    “Take it away,” she croaked. In the effort to give ordersshe forgot about the glass of milk. It tilted in her unsteady grip and spilt on her neat floral dress. She went to a seat in the corner and sank in, groaning and creaking like old machinery gone rusty from standing in the rain. It must have been her favorite corner, because her parrot’s cage was directly overhead. As soon as she sat down the parrot emerged from its cage on to a projecting rod, lowered its tail, and passed ordure, which missed the old lady by a tenth of an inch. Obi raised himself slightly on his seat to see the mess on the floor. But there was no mess. Everything was beautifully organized. There was a tray by the old lady’s chair nearly full of wet excrement.
    “I don’t think the place is owned by a Syrian,” said Obi. “She