Coth cried out, “Bosh!”
“So you must not infringe upon divine privileges by going naked in public; you must avoid any dealings with green peppers such as you see over yonder, for the reason that they are sacred to my worthless stepson, the Flower Prince; and the third refrainment which I now put upon you I shall not bother to reveal, because you are certain to find this abstinence even more easy to observe than the others. I have spoken.”
“I know well enough that you have spoken! But you have spoken balderdash. For if you for one moment think I am going to be bullied by you and your idiotic refrainments—!”
But Coth saw that the image had closed its eyes, and had tranquilly turned back in all to stone, and was not heeding him any longer.
21.
The Profits of Pepper Selling
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COTH was goaded, by such incivility, from indignation into a fine rage. He addressed the idol at some length, in terms which no person, whether human or divine, could have construed as worshipful. He gathered from the plants about him an armful of green peppers, he took off all his clothes, and he left them there in a heap upon the altar that was carved with skulls. He went up into the city of Porutsa stark naked and sat down in the market-place, crying, “Who will buy my green peppers!”
None of the Taoltecs hindered him, because the hill people, from Uro and Hipal and Thiapas, were used to come into Porutsa almost thus lightly clad; and it was evident enough that this fair-skinned stranger, with the bare, great, round, pink head, came unarmed with anything except the equipments of nature.
Coth sold his peppers, and went striding about the market-place inquiring for news of Dom Manuel, but none of these charcoal- and copper-colored persons seemed ever to have heard of the gray champion. When the market for that day was over, Coth went up into the hills about Tzatzitepec, in company with a full-bosomed, brown-eyed, delicious girl who had been selling water-cresses in the market-place: she proved brisk; and Coth spent four days with her to their mutual contentment.