I went over and tried to impress the paymaster, but he wouldn't be impressed either. He said arc No. 38 was shining persistently into the upper-story windows of the house of a municipal councillor, against his honour and privacy. He said the son of the municipal councillor was to marry his, the paymaster's daughter, and The Union Electric Company oughtn't to disturb such alliances. I went down to the plant as fast as possible, feeling in the mind to see people that were reasonable and steady, like the six dynamos.
Chepa was my foreman's name, and a good man he was—a half-breed of fifty years perhaps, with gray hair about his ears. I told him I was going to shut off the lights if they didn't pay up, and Chepa's hair stood on end. He said I was a distinguished gentleman, and would be shot for an anarchist together with himself.
“Mother of heaven! It will be a hot time. Behold me! I am game!”
I told him he wouldn't need any more heroism than came natural. I only wanted him to switch off, and throw the machines out of gear at nine o'clock Wednesday night, and then disappear for a day or two.
“Don't let them lay eyes on a hair of you.”
That was Saturday if my memory is right, the third of May. It came on Wednesday without any more interviews. The day was hot, and I didn't see that the tax collector was getting thinner with extra labour of collecting taxes. But the preparations for the festival were going on, so innocent and peaceful it would break your heart to see, with ridiculous strips of coloured cloth around the wax-palms on the Plaza; for a wax-palm grows a hundred and fifty feet high, and looks like a high-born lady; and red and white stripes around the foot of her, like a barber's pole, aren't becoming. I sent up a man with the bill in the afternoon, and he came back saying the Mayor was so busy with his uniform that he wouldn't look at him. I gave orders to shut off the switch at nine o'clock. About eight in the evening I disguised myself with a cloak and a villainous slouch hat, and left my house, which was a mile out of the city, though handy to the plant. The cook had run off to the Plaza, and I plugged up the telephone, so it was a house that couldn't be conversed with. Then I walked into town.
The Mayor's uniform and several other uniforms were on the balcony of magistrates, the Mayor making a speech to the effect that it was a municipality without parallel, a second Paris, which civilisation regarded universally, and exclaimed, “Behold Portate!” There was Padre Rafael, standing directly under an electric light, and it was curious to see him with that kind of saint's glory around him, and smiling like a plaster cast of Benevolence. Whoop-bang! went the brass band, with the bass drum miscellaneous, and the cornets audacious, and the trombones independent, but aiming, you might say, at a similar tune. And all the Plaza fell to dancing and conversing, with the fountain in the middle sprinkling recklessly, and the wax-palms done up in red and white bunting, and the electric light shining uncannily, with their bills unpaid.
“Come up, Padre Rafael!” shouts the Mayor presently, catching sight of his reverence, “to the balcony of the magistrates. It is a glorious occasion.” He puffed out his chest so anybody could admire that liked.
And then the lights went out, and the band ended off with a grunt and a squeal.
The Plaza was black as a hat, only for a few lights in the windows, and quite silent for a moment. I lit out when the howls began. It seemed to me they'd sound better from a distance. There were people running and shouting along the pitch-black streets. But getting into the outskirts of the city, I found there were a few stars shining, and came home without trouble. I sat down on a bench in the garden and waited. It was a hundred yards or more from the house. It was very peaceful, with all manner of tropical scents floating around. Shutting down the lights of Portate didn't seem to bother the rest of South America.