“We have yet one hope,” said the chief spokesman, as if desirous of concluding the conversation.
“And that?”
“Is the ’tzin Guatamo.”
“What luck, Pepite?”
“Bad, very bad.”
The questioner was the wife of the man questioned, who had just returned from the market. Throwing aside his empty baskets, he sat down in the shade of a bridge spanning one of the canals, and, locking his hands across his bare knees, looked gloomily in the water. His canoe, with others, was close at hand.
The wife, without seeming to notice his dejection, busied herself setting out their dinner, which was humble as themselves, being of boiled maize, tuna figs, and tecuitlatl, or cheese of the lake. When the man began to eat, he began to talk,—a peculiarity in which he was not altogether singular.
“Bad luck, very bad,” he repeated. “I took my baskets to the old stand. The flowers were fresh and sweet, gathered, you know, only last night. The market was full of people, many of whom I knew to be rich enough to buy at two prices; they came, and looked, and said, ‘They are very nice, Pepite, very nice,’ but did not offer to buy. By and by the sun went up, and stood overhead, and still no purchaser, not even an offer. It was very discouraging, I tell you; and it would have been much more so, if I had not pretty soon noticed that the market-people around me, fruiterers and florists, were doing no better than I. Then I walked about to see my friends; and in the porticos and booths as elsewhere in the square,—no trade; plenty of people, but no trade. The jewellers had covered their fronts with flowers,—I never saw richer,—you should have been there!—and crowds stood about breathing the sweet perfume; but as to purchasing, they did nothing of the sort. In fact, may the mitlou[46] of our little house fly away to-night, if, in the whole day, I saw an instance of trade, or so much as a cocoa-bean pass from one hand to another!”
“It has been so many days now, only not quite so bad, Pepite,” the wife said, struggling to talk cheerfully. “What did they say was the cause? Did any one speak of that?”