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Theodore and I dropped behind after this lecture, and before we reached the ranch had agreed to ride over to the Frio the next morning. During our absence that day, there had arrived at Las Palomas from the Mission, a padrino in the person of Don Alejandro Travino.
"Ha, bribon!" he said, pinching the burro's ears. "What is the use of wasting breath? Sus, sus, amigo!" The burro began to buck and Alejandro stepped back. As he did so he saw approaching him from behind the wagons a man in tattered garments, with a hat dragged over his eyes, and a great mass of furzy yellow beard. "Here, you!" said this person. "Oh, you're Mexican! Ya lo veo "
The conversation conducted by Maraquita to a ceaseless bouche pleine accompaniment from her friends bore exclusively upon the subject. Paranoya had, it appeared, existed fairly peacefully for centuries under the rule of the Alejandro dynasty.
They were for the most part Jimenistas and "Lilicistas," or members of the old Heureaux party, and their candidate for the presidency would probably have been Jimenez; but in Jimenez' absence the presidency was offered to Figuereo and others, who declined, and was finally accepted by Alejandro Woss y Gil, who had only the week before been liberated from the same political prison.
His spirit was as high as before, while his interest in literary matters remained the same. His brother, Miguel, who was present, happened to say during the conversation that the hat I wore, which I had purchased in Paris a few days previously, had a flatter brim than was usual. Alejandro asked to examine it, and busied himself feeling of the brim.
True, the beloved Alejandro might be restored; but he would sit upon a throne that was insecure, unless the coronation festivities took a bloodthirsty turn. By all means, said Maraquita, corrupt the army, but not at the risk of making the affair tame and unpopular. Paranoya was an emotional country, and liked its revolutions with a bit of zip to them.
As she sat thus one afternoon, Alejandro Vigil came running across the field, waving a letter. "'Tis for you, Lolita!" he cried. "My father read the marks. It is from Cripple Creek!" "Oh, give me! give me!" cried Lola, flinging down a mud dish. Jane had taken the letter. "It's for me, dear," she said, beginning to open it. "I'll read it aloud " She paused. Her face had a gray color.
The next morning Don Alejandro proposed returning to the Mission. But the old ranchero hooted the idea, and informed his guest that he had ordered the ambulance, as he intended showing him the recent improvements made on Las Palomas. When the guest protested against a longer absence from home, the host artfully intimated that by remaining another day a favorable reply might possibly go with him.
"This is a hat," he exclaimed enthusiastically, "that a man can wear with long hair." Some months subsequent to his death a book of his, Light Among the Shadows, was published, in which Alejandro spoke ill of me, although he had a good word for Sombre Lives. He called me a country-man, said that my bones were misshapen, and then stated that glory does not go hand in hand with tuberculosis.
Sometime later, Dicenta and I became friends, although we were never very intimate, because he felt that I did not appreciate him at his full worth. And it was the truth. I met Alejandro Sawa one evening at the Cafe Fornos, where I had gone with a friend. As a matter of fact, I had never read anything which he had written, but his appearance impressed me.
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