|WHEN I awoke in the morning, the sunlight was shining brightly through
the shutters, and I lay awhile getting things straightened out in my
mind, wondering what the authorities would do next, and sorting my own
cards. Then I noticed a murmuring all about, not like a conversation of
a few people, but like the voices of a crowd at some distance. I took a
cautious peek. Oh, my native country! The yard was full of soldiers of
the City Guard in their pink uniforms, all squatting on the ground very
dejectedly.
“Hi!” I thought. “There's no hurry about getting dressed. The cook must
have stayed shy, or they'd have got me.”
I never saw that cook again. I've heard that he came on the soldiers
about three o'clock in the morning, camping in the front yard. Their
orders were to stay there till I came home. The cook went off into the
country to avoid politics.
“Speaking of the cook now,” I said to myself, “they'll arrest me without
breakfast. They'll march me into town afoot, like a malefactor. It won't
do for the dignity of The Union Electric.”
With that I wrapped myself and the telephone in double blankets, took
out the plug, and cautiously rang up a livery-stable.
“Carriage!” I said, “to Senor Kirby's house, North Road, in an hour.”
Then I prospected in the kitchen on tiptoe, and collected a spirit-lamp
and such matters, got dressed, and breakfasted behind the shutters
with a calmness that was a bit artificial. The City Guard wasn't
breakfasting. By the calamitous features of the elderly officer sitting
on my horse-block, they didn't expect to. El Capitano Lugo was his name,
and a very friendly man, after breakfast.
I sat smoking behind the shutters, and waited for the carriage, which
came along leisurely about nine. The soldiery destroyed the picket-fence
getting into the road all together.
“What news?” said El Capitano Lugo.
The driver was a scared man.
“Eh!” he said. “But I know nothing, Senor Capitano, nothing! Carriage to
Senor Kirby, North Road. A telephone.”
“It is an empty house, idiot!”
With that they were all crowded close about the carriage, talking in low
tones, but excited. It was about ghosts, as the captain told me after,
and there ran a theory among them that I had been a spirit for the last
twelve hours, turning off lights and sending telephones to avenge the
atrocity of my murder.
But it got no farther than a theory, because of the opening of the door,
and me coming out on the porch in duck trousers, polka-dot tie, and a
calm that was artificial.
“Is that my carriage?” I asked.
“Ah!” shouted the captain, making for me, over the wrecks of the
picket-fence. I said:
“How d'ye do?”
“I arrest you!” said he.
“Of course you do. Get into the carriage.”
And off we went bowling toward the city, with the guard plodding far
behind in pink uniforms, and very dejected. Captain Lugo himself would
answer nothing when I tried to show him that pink uniforms were in bad
taste for a city guard.
But, oh, the extravagance of language at the City Hall, and the Mayor
with his beautiful temper in ruins!
“Intolerable! The contempt of dignity, the mockery of constituted power!
By whose orders were the lights turned off?”
“Mine, your Excellency, of course. Told you all about it last Saturday.”
“_Â la carcel!_” he shouted, with his official moustache standing up at
the ends. “He has despised the city. Take him to jail, hastily.”
“You'd better look out,” I said. “It's an international complication.
The United States will be capturing Portate with an extension of the
Monroe Doctrine,” I said, fishing wildly for an argument.
“Insolent foreigner!” said he.
“May Portate be darkened forever!” said I.
“_A la cârcel!_” said he, and four pink uniforms hustled me and my duck
trousers out into the street and around the corner to the jail.
Now that was an unpleasing place to be in. I charged up fifty dollars
for the experience, to The Union Electric Company, who said it was a
good joke and paid it, eventually; but it wasn't a joke.
The jail was an expanse of deal-wall on the street, except at one place
where there was an architectural doorway. And within there was a large
patio or courtyard, a low adobe building surrounding it, with rows
of open cells, and a sort of cemented veranda in front. That was the
Portate City Jail entire. There were guards at the door. They shoved you
in, and you did what you chose. There were groups of dirty peons lolling
about, others playing some game with pebbles and fragments of cement,
two women who had been officially interrupted while pounding each
other's heads, a donkey, some cats, and a sad-eyed pig, all arrested for
vagrancy.
I sent a guard up to the hotel for a chair, and sat down haughtily in
the corner of the veranda behind the gateway and farthest from the sun.
The groups of peons gathered around me. Their manners were naturally
good, but they couldn't avoid the romantic fascination of me. I sent
another guard with a telegram to the United States Minister and a
message for the resident Consul. I gave the guard a dollar to buy
tobacco and cigarette papers, and compromised with the friendly peons.
We agreed on a circle twenty feet away, which was near enough for
conversation, and far enough for a draught between. There was a wall of
them, all supplied with cigarettes, and me the centre of observation.
We discussed the government of Portate, and there was no one in the City
Jail but thought it needed reform.
By and by the Consul came, and he was so interested and pleased with the
situation that he wasn't up to the duties of his office, as I told him.
He said the Mayor was in luck, on account of the extreme heat up-country
at the capital.
“My guess at the Mayor is: he's figuring to keep you in jail over night
for the sake of his dignity, and cover you with documentary apologies in
the morning,” said the Consul. “And I've been telegraphing the Minister,
and can't get him; for he's gone hunting up the cool of the mountains
with the President of the Republic, the Minister of the Interior, and
some other official parties. I say, why did you pick out a festival and
presidential excursion day? You bold, bad man! said he, sticking his
hands in his pockets and laughing at me.
“Stay here all night!” I shouted.
“Can't help it,” said the Consul, grinning. “I've done all I could.
He'll get into trouble likely. What can I do, if he wants to run his
risk and stand by his luck?”
“I'll denounce you at home for inefficiency.”
“Have a cot bed?”
“Get out!”
“Pleasant dreams!” he said. “It 'll be a hot night;” and with that he
went off grinning.
The afternoon wore away slowly. I began to think the Mayor might have
me down after all, and wondered if Chepa would run the plant that night
with a detachment of pink soldiery over him. I sent a guard after some
lunch. No one else came except my lawyer, who brought some newspapers,
and said the Mayor was blushing all over with happiness and conceit. He
said there were crowds in the Plaza, and sure enough you could hear the
mutter and shuffle of them, for the Plaza was but a few blocks away.
It seemed to me they were making more noise than before, and when the
lawyer was gone, and the afternoon was late, it seemed to have grown to
a kind of dull roaring, with shouts and howls intermixed. The peons in
the patio were stirring about, too, and jabbering. The dusk was coming
on faintly.