XIII
But nothing happened on the morrow, or the day after that. Congress was still indulging in oratory. From time to time some one suggested a vote on the presidential question, but whenever it appeared that Árias might have enough supporters present to elect him, the adherents of Carías and Bonilla hastily seized their high silk hats and rushed outside so that there would be no quorum.
By this time most of the deputies were wearing two guns. Rumor stated that one Congressman had also added to his equipment a machete, a sword cane and a pair of brass knuckles. It began to look as though he might be able to settle the dispute. Then, by order of the President, the military stopped each Congressman at the door and disarmed him. And the indignant legislators were so incensed that they refused to meet. The Hall of Congress stood empty.
Rumors flew thick and fast again. Carías had slipped out of the city last night! He had gone to the east coast to organize his revolution! No, señor, he had done nothing of the kind! He had gone to the west coast. Ay, but he had just been seen at his dwelling in Tegucigalpa, he was still in the city! Perhaps the revolution would start right here!
There came another night when the outbreak was expected.
“Do not go out this evening,” urged little Petrona, as she brought my evening beans to the table. “You may be killed in the street if you are not careful.”
But my experience in Latin America had taught me that it is always some one else who is killed there. Having missed seeing so many insurrections elsewhere, I felt it a duty to witness this one. And I wandered through the dim streets, deserted as on Christmas Eve, and gloomy again with drizzling rain. The soldiery were again on patrol, searching me at every half block, even though they had seen me searched by their cohorts just a few feet away.
No open windows gave me a view to-night of families gathered about a Christmas tree. Doors and windows alike were shut and tightly barred. Not a soul was to be met except the barefoot troops. Not a light was to be seen except the flickering street lamp at each corner.
At the leading hotel the door was unlocked, and I pushed inside. Instead of the usual swarm of native aristocrats, the only occupants of the café were the bartender, a bootblack, and three gringos. They were Doc, Sparks, and Pop. Doc had the little bootblack on his knee, feeding him cheese, and teaching him to sing “The Star-Spangled Banner.” Sparks was shaking dice with the bartender to determine which should give the other his hat and go home bareheaded. Pop had four bottles of whiskey before him, with which the party was about to adjourn to his room, and he was covering the back of an envelope with figures in his effort to determine how four bottles could be evenly distributed among three men. Seeing me he threw the pencil in the air.
“Solved!” he cried.
And we adjourned to Pop’s quarters in the second story of the annex. I had some qualms as to the advisability of joining, for I dreaded the prospect of missing the revolution, but the other gringos already had reached the stage where refusal of such an invitation is considered an affront. Arrived in Pop’s room, they listened to my protest, and overruled it.
“You don’t need to see a revolution. We’ll tell you all about everything that happened in the whole history of Honduras. What do you want first?”
“How about the last revolution?”
Doc, elected raconteur for the three, assumed the attitude of a high-school declaimer, and announced:
“The last revolution.” He cleared his throat, and commenced dramatically. “I was standing in the doorway of the Young Men’s Christian Association—”
“In the doorway of the Agurcia,” corrected Sparks.
“Of the Agurcia, when suddenly a machine-gun started banging down the street, and the bar-room door went shut behind me, catapulting me into the middle of the road. I picked myself up, and made a rush for the W.C.T.U. across the way—
“For the what?”
“For the establishment across the way, and they slammed the doors in my face. I made a bee-line for the Epworth League meeting around the corner, and the barkeeper there—”
He paused to pour another round and forgot to resume. He walked out to the balcony with the empty bottle and returned with the sorrowful comment, “Nobody to throw it at. What do you want to hear about next?”
“Tell him about the badger fight,” suggested Pop.
Pop had stripped off his clothing, and now sat naked on the bed, a rather slender old gentleman, whose white hair still gave him something of dignity. Young Sparks was crawling under the bureau after the corkscrew. Doc, big and rotund, with cheerful ruddy face, again took the floor.
“The badger fight. We got the Salvadorean minister to be the badger’s second. He came direct from some diplomatic function, wearing his top hat, and his long coat, and his striped pants, and his spats, and patent leather shoes. We took him up to the hill, where we had the badger-cage all padded with straw. The dog that was to fight the badger was a big, ugly bloodhound. All the minister had to do was take hold of the rope, and pull the badger out of the cage, we explained, only we thought it best to put a stove-pipe over each of his legs, and cover his chest with a baseball protector, and put a mask over his face, and long gauntlets on his arms. You should have seen him in that get-up, with a silk hat on top of it all. We gave him the end of the rope, and said ‘Go!’ He was so scared, he forgot to let go of the rope, and when we all started yelling down hill, he beat the whole gang, still dragging behind him the old slop bucket that was in the badger-cage. But he was game. He took us all back to town and bought the—”
Association of ideas brought Doc’s eye to another bottle, and he emptied it into the glasses, shampooing Pop’s white hair with the dregs of it.
“At-a-boy, shampoo it!” chuckled Pop.
And Doc shampooed industriously. “Gimme the scissors,” he commanded. “Don’t cut it off!” protested Sparks. But Pop was game. “Cut it all off!” he cried recklessly. The party was getting rough. Sparks seized an armful of bottles and commenced hurling them from the balcony. They crashed noisily upon the silent street. Pop seized a paper bag, blew it up, and smote it with a loud, “Bang!”
If I were ever going to see the revolution, it was time to make my exit. I ducked out quietly, strolled downstairs and around the corner, and reached the avenue just in time to hear the excitement. A volley of musketry sounded from the barracks a few blocks away. Policemen were blowing their whistles, and running up and down. I chased after one.
“Where is it?” I demanded.
He was too busy blowing his whistle to answer me. More policemen joined us, and we ran toward the plaza, colliding with another patrol running from the opposite direction. Here or there a scattering shot resounded, but one could not judge its source. We raced around corners, up and down the street, asking other parties where the trouble was to be found, but no one knew. At length the shooting subsided, and I went home to bed.
The next morning I made inquiries.
“There was no revolution, señor! Only a couple of drunken Americanos blowing up paper bags and smashing bottles!”