“Ship ahoy!” in the harbor of Vera Cruz no longer excites attention. Counting the French and German ships, there are about a dozen in all. Seven belong to us. There were only two—the New Hampshire and the Louisiana—guarding the entrance to the channel when we arrived a month ago. Is the plot thickening?
IV
The “Abrazo”—Arrival of Mr. Lind—Delicate negotiations in progress—Luncheon at the German Legation—Excitement about the bull-fight—Junk-hunting—Americans in prison—Another “big game” hunt.
November 7th.
The newspaper with the announcement that Mr. Lind had left Vera Cruz last night for Mexico City was brought up on my breakfast tray. I have had two rooms made ready for him, moving rugs and desks and furniture about, robbing Peter to pay Paul, as one does in an incompletely furnished house. He will be welcome, and I hope comfortable, as long as he sees fit to stay. I bear the memory of something magnetic, something disarming of criticism, in his clear, straight gaze, blue viking eye, his kindly smile, and his tall, spare figure, clothed, not dressed. He won’t find it easy here and I don’t think any Mexican official sporting the oak of the protocol will receive him unless he is accompanied by N.—a sort of political, Siamese-twin effect, and of a superfluity.
Later.
When I got down-stairs Mr. Lind was in N.’s study. To greet him I had to get through a swarm of newspaper men clustering like bees around the honey-pot of “copy.” I presented him, so to speak, with the keys of the borough, and retreated to my own bailiwick to order luncheon for one o’clock. The whole town is whispering and wondering what it all will mean. Huerta remains silent. It appears that he and his generals are now willing to make headway against the rebels. Why not before? A hundred years ago “dips” were sent to Constantinople to learn a thing or two they hadn’t known before. Now, I think, Mexico is as good a school for the study of other points of view.
Mr. Lind makes no secret of his conviction of the hostile intentions of England in the Mexican situation; but I have difficulty in thinking that to save her interests here, big though they be, England would ever do anything to jeopardize our friendship. In last week’s Multicolor there was a picture of the White House, with England, Germany, and France in the act of painting it green. Poner verde is to insult.
Huerta feels that he has the support of many foreign powers, especially of England. Sir L., by presenting his credentials the morning after the coup d’état, stiffened him up considerably.