He drew up a chair and sat down.
“Wait a minute,” he said. “How is the wind? There seems to be scarcely a breath. Still, I think you’re to leeward of me, to use a nautical term. I will change to the opposite side, as I wish to smoke a cigarette, to which I hope you have no objections.”
He made the change and sat close at Inza’s right hand. In a moment, having received permission from her, he was deftly rolling a cigarette.
“It always interests me to watch an expert roll a cigarette,” she laughed. “They do it so cleverly. It’s like magic.”
“You should see a Mexican vaquero roll one,” he said. “Some of them do it with one hand while riding at full gallop on the back of a horse.”
He struck a match and lighted the cigarette, at which he puffed in a manner of absolute satisfaction and content, at the same time continuing the conversation.
“Have you ever visited my country, señorita?” he asked, directing the question toward Inza.
“Never yet,” she answered.
“You have missed much,” he declared. “Old Mexico is the fairest land in all the world. The American who simply crosses the line and visits the northern part of Mexico comes away with a bad opinion of it. He sees deserts and a country that is both mountainous and arid. Besides that, in the north the Indians roam restlessly and create much trouble. But let the visitor go as far south as the City of Mexico—let him go beyond. Ah! the south of Mexico; it’s like paradise! The climate is perfect. Down there in many places the thermometer never reaches eighty by day and never sinks below sixty by night. It’s a land of peace and plenty. If a man is lazy, he need not lift his hand to work from one year’s end to another.”
“You say it’s a land of peace and plenty,” laughed Inza. “Perhaps it’s a land of plenty, but I don’t think it has always been a land of peace.”