He smiled. He removed his baggage most graciously. Within half an hour he had announced himself our humble servant, and was planning gay parties for us at the several stopping-places ahead. He knew all the girls along the West Coast, he said, both respectable and otherwise. He would see that we enjoyed the trip. He would be our guide and mentor in things Mexican. And when we reached Mazatlán—the southern terminus of the road, some three or four days distant—his house would be our house. We should attend his wedding, which was to be celebrated immediately upon his arrival, and if we remained long enough, we should be the godfathers to his first child.
And although he impressed me as somewhat too lavish in his promises, he proved an entertaining companion on the long journey—a journey through a monotonous continuation of the Sonora desert, with stop-overs at cities which, with minor variations, were replicas of Hermosillo—at Guaymas, San Blas, and Culiacán—cities pleasant and interesting, yet never so interesting to me as my first Mexican friend, the little General.
II
The young teniente was typical in many ways not only of the Mexicans, but of most of the Latin-Americans.
He lived completely in the present, with scarcely a thought of the morrow. For him tempus did not fugit, save very rarely, and even then there was sure to be more tempus afterward.
He had unlimited time for friendliness and politeness. In his friendliness he was prone to those professions of love which to the Anglo-Saxon mind savor of hypocrisy; in his politeness he was inclined toward phraseology that suggested figurative language; yet if this were hypocrisy, it was tempered with self-deception, and the phraseology was intended frankly as figurative language.
If he sometimes lacked veracity, it was because his code of etiquette called not for the truth, but for some statement that would give more satisfaction than the truth. Seldom thinking beyond the immediate present, he apparently did not reflect that an ultimate discovery of reality might bring disappointment greater than the original satisfaction.
One encounters this mental habit everywhere in Latin America. If one inquires of a fellow-passenger whether he is nearing his destination, he invariably is assured that he is, although a half-day’s journey may confront him. If one asks a hotel servant whether laundry may be washed before to-morrow night, he invariably learns that it may, although the servant knows perfectly well that the laundress will not call until the day after to-morrow.
In Guaymas, our first stopping-place, the General was to meet us in the Plaza at three o’clock to take us to visit his uncle. At about five, we bumped into him accidentally upon the street.
“Amigos!” he cried delightedly, enfolding each of us in a Latin embrace. “So glad I am to see you! I wish to take you to visit my uncle.”