XII
January first arrived, and Congress met.
I went to the Capitol with Mario Ribas, who was the Associated Press Correspondent and the editor of Tegucigalpa’s leading magazine. He was a Spaniard and a neutral in politics.
“If any one starts shooting,” he advised, “the quickest way out of the building is that of sliding down the shed, running across the patio, and climbing over the roof.”
The legislators met in a long, narrow room filled with plain wooden benches. On the wall were the pictures of former presidents, almost none of whom had been able to finish his term before succeeded by one of the others. The chamber’s only real embellishments were the many flags and draperies of blue and white that hung from the ceiling.
At the entrance was a company of boy soldiers from the military school—none of them twenty years of age, but considered the most dependable of the government troops. Their officers scanned every one who entered the Capitol, but they knew Ribas, and passed us without question.
The congressmen assembled gradually, each of them appearing a trifle nervous. They wore high hats and Prince Albert coats, but a suspicious bulge at the hip testified that each was ready for a possible emergency, and when a coat swung accidentally open, one caught a glimpse of a well-filled cartridge belt.
Still, the first day passed without disturbance. There was a slight row when the august body voted down a motion to make some trifling alteration to the minutes of the last meeting. The deputy whose motion was defeated rose indignantly. With the amazing sensitiveness of the Latin-American, he felt that he had been personally insulted. Furiously he turned and stamped out of Congress, seizing his hat and cane from the rack outside, and knocking down the hats of several other deputies in his haste. They all rushed out, picked up their hats, wiped off the dust, and hung them up again. Then the meeting resumed, interrupted by other slight rows, as other men took offense because their suggestions were not received enthusiastically, and followed the exit of the first.
Finally the remaining few sent a committee to inform the President that they were ready to listen to his opening message. The cadets formed a double line from the Palace to the Capitol, and the President came in person, walking at the head of the cabinet and the diplomatic corps. He was a worried-looking little man, and he walked with tired step. Four bands cheered him with the National Anthem, all playing in different tempo, a boom of cannon greeted him from the fortress, and his boy soldiers presented arms at sixty different angles. The crowds applauded, and I was reaching into my pocket for a handkerchief to wave at him, when a firm hand closed upon my wrist, and I looked into the hard face of a Honduran secret service man.
“Pardon, señor!” he said, as he saw that I had only a handkerchief. “One can not be too careful these days.”
Then the President disappeared into the Capitol to read his message, and the soldiers barred the gates to sight-seers.
“There’ll be nothing happening to-day,” said Ribas. “It takes them a while to get started. Wait until they meet to-morrow.”