“What’s a bola?”
“A bola is information that somebody who is totally ignorant of the facts whispers confidentially in your ear with the assurance that he knows it to be authentic—in other words, a lie.”
“Then there isn’t any plague down under those quaint, old, red-tiled roofs?”
“Who ever knows what’s going on under those quaint, old, red-tiled roofs? No foreigner, certainly.”
“Even I can feel the mystery, little as I’ve seen of the place,” said the girl.
“Oh, that’s the Indian of it. The tiled roofs are Spanish; the speech is Spanish; but just beneath roof and speech, the life and thought are profoundly and unfathomably Indian.”
“Not with all the Caracuñans, surely. Take Mr. Raimonda, for instance.”
“Ah, that’s different. Twenty families of the city, perhaps, are pure-bloods. There are no finer, cleaner fellows anywhere than the well-bred Caracuñans. They are men of the world, European educated, good sportsmen, straight, honorable gentlemen. Unfortunately not they, but a gang of mongrel grafters control the politics of the country.”
“For a hermit of science, you seem to know a good deal of what goes on. By the way, Mr. Raimonda called on me—on us last evening.”
“So he mentioned. Rather serious, that, you know.”