“You are right,” he said. “There is no justice or jurisprudence in this place. I am a British subject, but it’s no use a man going to the British Consul here, for he don’t even want to listen to you.
“It’s more than hard,” he continued reflectively. “A man can’t get a good job in his own country, an’ when he come to a God-forsaken foreign land he has no protection at all. In Jamaica you have to die of starvation, an’ here you lucky if you don’t die of neglect.”
“In Jamaica it is only taxes you hear about all de time,” said the heavy-looking man. (All his remarks invariably gravitated towards the subject of taxation.) “The Gov’nment don’t care what become of you so long as them can get the taxes. It’s a shame!
“Look what them do wid a man down here. I live out at Gatun an’ them won’t even let me keep a female helpmeet in a respectable way. Them want me to married! Now don’t you see that if the Jamaica Government did look after us as it should, all that sort of advantage couldn’t be take of a man?”
“Yes,” assented Jones. “I have a female meself, an’ I have to live in Colon because they won’t let her come to Christobal. They put me to any amount of expense, all for the sake of form.”
“The thruth of the matter,” observed the erstwhile lawyer’s clerk, is this: “the American methods are conducive to immorality. If a man leaves his gurl in Colon, how is he to know that some other fellow is not going after her?” He put the question with an air of conviction. He himself had a great reputation for gallantry, and might be supposed to be speaking from experience.
“You know, you are right!” exclaimed Jones, staring at him with semi-drunken gravity. This aspect of the situation had apparently not occurred to him before. Now, however, it began to loom large in his muddled brain. He grew indignant. He voiced an imaginary wrong. “Fancy,” he cried, “just fancy a man working hard all day an’ supporting a female in comfort an’ proficiency, and another man goin’ to the house in the daytime an’ enjoying himself at my expense!” He foresaw himself being wronged, all through the neglect of the British Government and the faulty methods of the Canal Administration.
“Ah!” sighed the ex-lawyer’s clerk sympathetically, “a man has a lot to put up with in this country. He cannot be too careful. What I say, gentlemen, is: don’t trust any wemen, not even you’ own mother.”
This advice strongly appealed to Jones. It inspired him with a desire to be vigilant. That young man, Tom Wooley, who was even now in the dancing-hail where Susan was—what base designs might he not be harbouring against the domestic peace of Samuel Josiah Jones? He had been warned against Susan. Her friendliness towards Tom was apparent. Yes, he was not being treated fairly, he was sure of it; neither the Government of Jamaica nor Susan was treating him fairly. He became suddenly angry. “Gents,” he said, rising, “I have enjoyed you’ company, but a man must protect himself. An advantage is being taken of poor Samuel. I must go inside an’ look after me rights.”
The heavy man nodded a solemn acquiescence, and Jones, with lurching steps, proceeded to the dancing-hall, where the dancers were now clapping their hands and stamping their feet in a perfect ecstasy of enjoyment.