|THE city of Portate, on the west coast of South America, when I knew
it, had already a distinct flavour of enterprise. Two Northern companies
had much to do with its affairs. One of them, The Union Electric, had
the trolleys and the street lighting; the other had been longer on the
ground, was called The Transport Company, and owned the inland railroad
and the principal line of steamers in the harbour. I had charge of The
Union Electric plant. Both were large companies operating in numerous
South-American cities.
There is a river called the Jiron, which runs down from the mountains,
and makes a green strip through a desert land, and so on through Portate
to the sea. Even from the sea you can make out the white caps of the
Andes; but in the heats of Portate, you decline to believe that the
white is snow.
Portate is the seaport of the country. There is a telegraph line running
inland to the capital. The monkeys do gymnastics on the wires, and the
natives steal sections of it to tie their roofs on with, on the theory
that the thing is plain foolishness, and the enterprise of fools is the
profit of the wise. Then you go around and lam the native and take the
wire, but he stays by his own opinion, and the Government wants to know
what you mean by allowing official messages to be interrupted; for, they
say, monkeys and roofs are not in the contract, and call it improper
frivolity to mention them: “Why tie on roofs with official messages?
Why improperly submit important business to the gymnastics of creatures
without intelligence?”--till you come out of it by swearing yourself
blood relation to all the monkeys on the Jiron, which seems as
satisfactory as anything, being put down to the inherited madness of the
Northerner. There are several varieties of monkeys on the Jiron.
In the city of Portate there are wharves, which float off to sea in
freshets, and have to be pursued and brought back in disgrace. The
trolley line goes from the wharves to the Plaza, and then visiting
about town. The telephones and electric lights are the pride of the
enlightened, but the unenlightened think they are run by connection with
that pit of the sinful about which Padre Rafael is an authority.
“For, observe! It is not as wood that it burns. _Madré de Dios_, no! It
is the wrath of the devil on the end of a stick.”
The Union Electric had the contract for the whole outfit of the lights
and trolleys, and sent me down to handle it. I had good nerve then. I
thought electricity was king, and that a man could do anything he set
out to do. He can, but my nerve is not so good now.
Now The Union Electric Company's contract was to furnish the city of
Portate so many arc lights, at so much a month per light, with monthly
payments, but there was more politics in it than I was used to. It took
me some time to see that if the Mayor bought a set of gilt furniture
on the 28th, and the paymaster a span of horses on the 29th, it wasn't
reasonable to bring them a city lighting bill on the 30th. But they
thought it unreasonable, and after awhile I came near thinking so too.
I had to get five signatures to each bill, and the signatures took turns
going off into the country between the 30th and the 15th. After that
they generally came with protests in parentheses, that arc No. 53 had
been observed by respected gentlemen to sputter improperly, and that
arc No. 5, on a certain night, had refused to burn, in contempt of
authority,--which was because a native had heaved a stone into it, out
of religious scruples. They were always in arrears.
They liked it that way. They said it was delay in tax-collecting. It was
very warm. Did the Senor suffer from the heat? Alas! the tax collector
was too fat. It had been represented to his Excellency that tax
collectors should be thinner. They were thirty thousand dollars behind.
It seemed to me that the city of Portate was too happy. It didn't have
troubles enough.
I went to see the Mayor, what they call the “Jefe Municipal.”
He was a puffy old man, of about the fatness of the tax collector, but
smaller, and wore a white moustache and imperial in such a way that it
seemed to be his symbol of authority.
I said, “Mayor, the city owes me thirty thousand dollars.”
“Is it possible!” he cried, holding up his hands. “But we do pay you too
much. How does the city owe you so much if it is not too much?”
That was good tropical logic. Tropical logic always confused me.
“My friend,” he said, “is it not in your country also that the
corporation oppresses the people?”
“The Union Electric,” I said, “doesn't do business for love of humanity,
and it didn't send me down here for my health.”
“Alas! No?” sighed the Mayor, wiping his forehead. “The corporations
are without souls, pitiless. I read it in a newspaper, that also of
the United States. But if the Senor's health is delicate, a trip to the
hills---”
“I give you till Wednesday night.”
He brightened up.
“It is a festival night. The municipal band will play in the Plaza. The
people will dance. Portate is a city of pleasure, a second Paris. And
you, Senor, will honour us, on the balcony of the magistrates.”
“Thirty thousand dollars by Wednesday night, or I shut off the lights.
With great regret, your Excellency----”
“Senor----”
“It's an ultimatum. Allow me to express, nevertheless----”
The Mayor rose, smiling.
“Nevertheless, you will observe the festival. A delight, Senor, a
panorama!”
I went over and tried to impress the paymaster, but he wouldn't be
impressed either. He said arc No. 38 was shining persistently into the
upper-story windows of the house of a municipal councillor, against his
honour and privacy. He said the son of the municipal councillor was
to marry his, the paymaster's daughter, and The Union Electric Company
oughtn't to disturb such alliances. I went down to the plant as fast
as possible, feeling in the mind to see people that were reasonable and
steady, like the six dynamos.
Chepa was my foreman's name, and a good man he was--a half-breed of
fifty years perhaps, with gray hair about his ears. I told him I was
going to shut off the lights if they didn't pay up, and Chepa's hair
stood on end. He said I was a distinguished gentleman, and would be shot
for an anarchist together with himself.
“Mother of heaven! It will be a hot time. Behold me! I am game!”
I told him he wouldn't need any more heroism than came natural. I only
wanted him to switch off, and throw the machines out of gear at nine
o'clock Wednesday night, and then disappear for a day or two.
“Don't let them lay eyes on a hair of you.”
That was Saturday if my memory is right, the third of May. It came on
Wednesday without any more interviews. The day was hot, and I didn't
see that the tax collector was getting thinner with extra labour of
collecting taxes. But the preparations for the festival were going
on, so innocent and peaceful it would break your heart to see, with
ridiculous strips of coloured cloth around the wax-palms on the Plaza;
for a wax-palm grows a hundred and fifty feet high, and looks like a
high-born lady; and red and white stripes around the foot of her, like
a barber's pole, aren't becoming. I sent up a man with the bill in
the afternoon, and he came back saying the Mayor was so busy with his
uniform that he wouldn't look at him. I gave orders to shut off the
switch at nine o'clock. About eight in the evening I disguised myself
with a cloak and a villainous slouch hat, and left my house, which was a
mile out of the city, though handy to the plant. The cook had run off
to the Plaza, and I plugged up the telephone, so it was a house that
couldn't be conversed with. Then I walked into town.
The Mayor's uniform and several other uniforms were on the balcony
of magistrates, the Mayor making a speech to the effect that it was
a municipality without parallel, a second Paris, which civilisation
regarded universally, and exclaimed, “Behold Portate!” There was Padre
Rafael, standing directly under an electric light, and it was curious to
see him with that kind of saint's glory around him, and smiling like a
plaster cast of Benevolence. Whoop-bang! went the brass band, with the
bass drum miscellaneous, and the cornets audacious, and the trombones
independent, but aiming, you might say, at a similar tune. And all the
Plaza fell to dancing and conversing, with the fountain in the middle
sprinkling recklessly, and the wax-palms done up in red and white
bunting, and the electric light shining uncannily, with their bills
unpaid.
“Come up, Padre Rafael!” shouts the Mayor presently, catching sight
of his reverence, “to the balcony of the magistrates. It is a glorious
occasion.” He puffed out his chest so anybody could admire that liked.
And then the lights went out, and the band ended off with a grunt and a
squeal.
The Plaza was black as a hat, only for a few lights in the windows, and
quite silent for a moment. I lit out when the howls began. It seemed to
me they'd sound better from a distance. There were people running and
shouting along the pitch-black streets. But getting into the outskirts
of the city, I found there were a few stars shining, and came home
without trouble. I sat down on a bench in the garden and waited. It was
a hundred yards or more from the house. It was very peaceful, with all
manner of tropical scents floating around. Shutting down the lights of
Portate didn't seem to bother the rest of South America.
By and by a carriage drove up, and there was a deal of banging at the
doors, and tramping around the house. I thought it was an under-official
that threw a rock through the window, not a real dignitary. Later there
was another carriage, more banging and tramping.
I went to bed after that. I don't know how long they tried to telephone
from the City Hall--the telephone didn't say.