chauffeur—that is to say in the stoke-hole. He had landed in, I think, Havre; had missed his ship; had
inquired something of a gendarme in French (which he spoke not at all,
with the exception of a phrase or two like "quelle heure qu'il est?");
had been kindly treated and told that he would be taken to a ship de suite—had boarded a train in the company of two or three kind gendarmes, ridden a prodigious distance, got off the train finally with
high hopes, walked a little distance, come in sight of the grey
perspiring wall of La Ferté, and—"So, I ask one of them: 'Where is the
Ship?' He point to here and tell me, 'There is the ship.' I say: 'This is
a God Dam Funny Ship'"—quoth Mexique, laughing.
Mexique played dominoes with us (B. having devised a set from card-board), strolled The Enormous Room with us, telling of his father and brother in Mexico, of the people, of the customs; and—when we were in the cour—wrote the entire conjugation of tengo in the deep mud with a little stick, squatting and chuckling and explaining. He and his brother had both participated in the revolution which made Carranza president. His description of which affair was utterly delightful.
"Every-body run a-round with guns" Mexique said. "And bye-and-bye no see to shoot everybody, so everybody go home." We asked if he had shot anybody himself. "Sure. I shoot everybody I do'no" Mexique answered laughing. "I t'ink every-body no hit me" he added, regarding his stocky person with great and quiet amusement. When we asked him once what he thought about the war, he replied, "I t'ink lotta bull—," which, upon copious reflection, I decided absolutely expressed my own point of view.
Mexique was generous, incapable of either stupidity or despondency, and mannered as a gentleman is supposed to be. Upon his arrival he wrote almost immediately to the Mexican (or is it Spanish?) consul—"He know my fader in Mexico"—stating in perfect and unambiguous Spanish the facts leading to his arrest; and when I said good-bye to La Misère Mexique was expecting a favorable reply at any moment, as indeed he
