“Not with the Labour Party!” said Owen, almost at bay.
“The Labour Party!” the Judge fairly spat like a cat. “There is no such thing. What is the Labour Party in Mexico? A bunch of isolated factory hands here and there, mostly in the State of Vera Cruz. The Labour Party! They’ve done what they could already. We know them.”
“That’s true,” said Henry. “The Labourites have tried every little game possible. When I was in Orizaba they marched to the Hotel Francia to shoot all the gringos and the Gachupines. The hotel manager had pluck enough to harangue them, and they went off to the next hotel. When the man came out there to talk to them, they shot him before he got a word out. It’s funny, really! If you have to go to the Town Hall, and you’re dressed in decent clothes, they let you sit on a hard bench for hours. But if a street-sweeper comes in, or a fellow in dirty cotton drawers, it is Buenos Dios! Señor! Pase Usted! Quiere Usted algo?—while you sit there waiting their pleasure. Oh, it’s quite funny.”
The Judge trembled with irritation like an access of gout. The party sat in gloomy silence, that sense of doom and despair overcoming them as it seems to overcome all people who talk seriously about Mexico. Even Owen was silent. He too had come through Vera Cruz, and had had his fright; the porters had charged him twenty pesos to carry his trunk from the ship to the train. Twenty pesos is ten dollars, for ten minutes’ work. And when Owen had seen the man in front of him arrested and actually sent to jail, a Mexican jail at that, for refusing to pay the charge, “the legal charge,” he himself had stumped up without a word.
“I walked into the National Museum the other day,” said the Major quietly. “Just into that room on the patio where the stones are. It was rather a cold morning, with a Norte blowing. I’d been there about ten minutes when somebody suddenly poked me on the shoulder. I turned round, and it was a lout in tight boots. You spik English? I said yes! Then he motioned me to take my hat off: I’d got to take my hat off. What for? said I, and I turned away and went on looking at their idols and things: ugliest set of stuff in the world, I believe. Then up came the fellow with the attendant—the attendant of course wearing his cap. They began gabbling that this was the National Museum, and I must take off my hat to their national monuments. Imagine it: those dirty stones! I laughed at them and jammed my hat on tighter and walked out. They are really only monkeys, when it comes to nationalism.”
“Exactly!” cried Henry. “When they forget all about the Patria and Mexico and all that stuff, they’re as nice a people as you’d find. But as soon as they get national, they’re just monkeys. A man up from Mixcoatl told me a nice story. Mixcoatl is a capital way in the South, and they’ve got a sort of Labour bureau there. Well, the Indians come in from the hills, as wild as rabbits. And they get them into that bureau, and the Laboristas, the agitator fellows, say to them: Now Señores, have you anything to report from your native village? Haven’t you anything for which you would like redress? Then of course the Indians start complaining about one another, and the Secretary says: Wait a minute, gentlemen! Let me ring up the Governor and report this. So he goes to the telephone and starts ringing: ringing: Ah! Is that the Palace? Is the Governor in? Tell him Señor Fulano wants to speak to him! The Indians sit gaping with open mouths. To them it’s a miracle. Ah! Is that you. Governor! Good morning! How are you! Can I have your attention for a moment? Many thanks! Well I’ve got some gentlemen here down from Apaxtle, in the hills: José Garcia, Jesus Querido, etc.—and they wish to report so-and-so. Yes! Yes! That’s it! Yes! What? You will see that justice is done and the thing is made right? Ah señor, many thanks! In the name of these gentlemen from the hills, from the village of Apaxtle, many thanks.
There sit the Indians staring as if heaven had opened and the Virgin of Guadalupe was standing tiptoe on their chins. And what do you expect? The telephone is a dummy. It isn’t connected with anywhere. Isn’t that rich? But it’s Mexico.”
The moment’s fatal pause followed this funny story.
“Oh but!” said Kate, “it’s wicked! It is wicked. I’m sure the Indians would be all right, if they were left alone.”
“Well,” said Mrs Norris. “Mexico isn’t like any other place in the world.”